My experience with this poem has changed every time I read it. The first time I read this poem, I thought it was about a gladiator who was dying. The poem gave an enormous amount of detail to the different things that were happening all at the same time. After further reading and a hint from my classmate, I realized this poem has a much deeper meaning. This poem is actually about a soldier who has gotten shot and is dying. The reason the title talks about a gladiator is because this soldier talks about how in his last moment he wants to be gladiator. The story of this poem is about a soldier who dies but in his last moments he remembers a gladiator who is always brave even as he's dying. He talks about how a gladiator never gives up and “Does …show more content…
This poem, when not reading it searching for a deeper meaning, is about a gladiator who is dying. There are also seemingly-random lines places throughout the poem. When searching for the actual meaning, you realize these random lines aren't so random. These lines are key to finding the deeper meaning about a soldier. This soldier is the “main character” in this poem. The soldier, assumingly got shot, and in his final moments, looks up to a gladiator and remember how gladiators stay strong and brave before they die. He talks about how gladiators have a thousand thoughts running through their minds but they still will be brave. Kevin Prufer mae this poem only one stanza, which is confusing to me. I think that Kevin Prufer should have made different stanzas when he refers back to real life. This would help the reader out when trying to decide whether Kevin is talking about the soldier or the gladiator. I think that this title is a good one, but only if Kevin wanted the reader to really search for the hidden meaning. If he was trying to give it up, he should have named this poem “The Soldier”. The theme or tone of this poem seems to be remembrance. When researching a little bit into Kevin Prufer’s life, you realize that this poem fits in very nicely with the rest of the books he writes. He seems to enjoy writing about America. He has written books “In a Beautiful Country” and “National Anthem:
Over many centuries, Poetry and song has been a way for people to explore their feelings, thoughts and questions about War & Peace. Rupert Brooke's “The Soldier” and Cold Chisel’s “Khe Sanh” provide two different insights into the nature of war. . “The Soldier” conveys a message of bravery for soldiers to go into war and fight while “Khe sanh” conveys a message about post-traumatic stress and the horrible factors of coming back into civilization after war.
Though in his short life Stephen Crane was never a soldier, his novel The Red Badge of Courage was commended by Civil War veterans as well as veterans from more recent wars not only for its historical accuracy but its ability to capture the psychological evolution of those on the field of battle (Heizberg xvi). Walt Whitman, on the other hand, served as a field medic during the Civil War. He was exposed perhaps to the most gruesome aspect of the war on a daily basis: the primitive medical techniques, the wounded, the diseased, the dying and the dead. Out of his experiences grew a collection of poems, "Drum Taps" , describing the horrors he had witnessed and that America suffered. As literary artists, a wide chasm of structure and style separates Crane and Whitman. The common cultural experience, the heritage of the Civil War connects them, throwing a bridge across the darkness, allowing them, unilaterally, to dispel notions of glorious battles and heroic honorable deaths. By examining Crane's Henry Fleming and the wound dresser from 'Whitman's poem of the same name, both fundamental literary differences and essential thematic consistencies emerge.
One must look at this poem and imagine what is like to live thru this experience of becoming so tired of expecting to die everyday on the battlefield, that one starts to welcome it in order to escape the anticipation. The effects of living day in and day out in such a manner creates a person who either has lost the fear of death or has become so frighten of how they once lived the compensate for it later by living a guarded life. The one who loses the fear for death ends up with this way of living in which they only feel alive when faced with death. The person in this poem is one who has lost their fear of death, and now thrives off coming close to it he expresses it when he states “Here is the adrenaline rush you crave, that inexorable flight, that insane puncture” (LL.6-7). What happens to this persona when he leaves the battlefield? He pushes the limit trying to come close to death to feel alive; until they push
The song was written to motivate young men to join the army, idealizing soldiers as patriotic “son[s] of liberty” who would make their fathers, girlfriends, and country proud. The US soldiers are shown as the liberators of
This opening paragraph is a simple, poetic version of the main theme behind All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. The point of the story is to show that war is not romantic, glorious, or fantastic. In fact, those words could not be further from the truth. War is a disgusting competition of human instinct, fought by the wrong people. It brings out the worst in everyone; it destroys their compassion, honesty, and ideals. The beginning chapters of All Quiet on the Western Front are devoted to showing that warfare hardens soldiers against true emotions. Their main priority is survival, second is comfort, followed by gain.
The speaker in "War is Kind" is an officer who grapples with his own conscience in an internal monologue. He is struggling with his feelings of guilt over leading younger soldiers into battle and his military responsibility to cover up the truth. One way of interpreting this poem is to consider that the officer is attending a traditional military funeral for one of his soldiers. This can be seen in the way the stanzas are set up in the poem. In the first, third, and fifth stanzas, the speaker appears to be consoling the weeping loved ones of a soldier who died in the war. This would normally be the job of an officer who leads a regiment into battle. Consoling the family members is a powerful tool for conveying the reality of war. Addressing loved ones of a deceased soldier illustrates the loss and suffering to be dealt with by those left behind. He speaks to a "maiden" (1), a "babe" (12), and a "mother" (23), thereby, conveying one of the most significant truths about wa...
see such a custom as cruel, it was in fact made less so than it
...and the way that the opposing sides think of each other is awful. The fact that one side is praying for disaster to come on their enemies isn’t showing God’s love and at the end of the poem it says, “We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love.” It is out of love for their own soldiers but not for the soldiers on the other side. This poem shows the real aspects of people’s feelings about war. Many people don’t want their own side to be crushed, but they don’t care if the other side does get crushed.
The terms ‘civilized’ and ‘barbaric’, while being paradoxes in themselves, seem to go hand in hand and inseparable in all aspects of society, both in the current ‘developed’ world and its contemporary distant past. While one may easily laugh at the idiotic, yet violent simpleton of a caveman offspring in comedy cartoons, and similarly decline all backward practices of distant tribes of a faraway land, it cannot be denied that even the most advanced of our kind seem to embrace similar barbaric methods and means of entertainment in our everyday world. From violent movies filled with murders and gruesome scenes to bloody organized sports, the modern world still seeks entertainment in the form of violence and cruelty, not very different from that enjoyed by the ‘glorious’ world of Ancient Rome. Back then, people from all classes and age would look forward to weekend games. They would gather to see fighters, called gladiators, fight each other to the death in large arenas. This is one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the Roman Empire and one that has deep influence on the entire Roman society
Firstly I will be exploring metaphor as it is used so much in this poem. The first metaphor which I will examine is “Haunting Flares” on line 3 of the first stanza. This quote has so many connotations, my first opinion on this was that the flares which the enemy are firing to light up the battlefield are said to be representing the souls of the soldiers fallen comrades. This could also be said to represent the power the enemy has on their own mortality as the bright flares would light up the battle-field exposing everything to their view, this indicates that the enemy always seem to have power upon the soldiers, almost godly. The second metaphor which I will explore is: “An ecstasy of fumbling” in line one of the second stanza.
The life of a gladiator could be a grueling life unless you were the best and never lost. Gladiators fought in events known as gladiatorial games. The first gladiatorial games were recorded in 310 BCE. The first Gladiatorial games were not held in the huge coliseums we see today. Instead they were most likely held to entertain a powerful person or ruler. Gladiatorial combat originated as a religious event to honor the dead, victory of an important battle, a sacrifice to the gods, or to honor the death of someone in a high standing position. The first Roman Gladiatorial games were held in 246 BCE to honor Marcus and Decimus Brutus. ("Life of a Gladiator") These games started an era of gladiatorial events that would last for nearly a century to come.
...ays two vital roles in WWII, it shows how officers in the military must act and, know all their parts, meaning to know all the rules and regulations but also know the importance, how to use guns and weapons. The officers must also realize that after the war has ended, there would be a great casualty in the drop of men. The poem is subtle is the sense that you really have to read and understand the poem before making any assumptions. As I have read the poem many times it took me a while to fully comprehend and understand what Reed was trying to interpret. As the duties of a private would be: to fight the war and engage the enemy; but also after the war is over they would have to return home and follow the order of the general and find a suitable women and create a family with her. There are always duties for privates, as they always have a vital command to oblige to.
The poem ‘Weapons Training’ is written in a monologue style, and is in the viewpoint of one person. The persona in the poem is the drill sergeant. This poem is referring to a drill sergeant yelling at a group of untrained soldiers, as he teaches them on how to use their weapons. He uses a negative tone towards the young soldiers, using language that insults them in the aim to toughen them up. The language the drill sergeant uses is offensive and racist. He furthermore tries to get the soldiers to discover ‘hate’, so they can learn to dislike the enemies and kill ‘the enemies’. He does not portray a charming figure. However, he relishes in the brutal sense of
Most gladiators were captured soldiers from Roman wars, slaves, or prisoners. Unsurprisingly, lives of new gladiators were harsh and unpleasant. After the Roman Empire decided they would be gladiators, they would have been sent to a gladiator school where they would have been given an exam by a doctor. If they were fit enough to fight they would have been assigned a specific gladiator job based on their size and strength. The recruits, or novicius, would go through initial training which focused on fitness and their assigned gladiator type’s specific fighting techniques often by former gladiators. After the recruits finished initial training they would have been called Tirones and were marked with tattoos to make it harder to escape. Though many the new gladiators were put in shackles and were no allowed to talk, all gladiators were fed three meals a day. They were also given medical care when needed as well as fairly comfortable housing. After some experience gladiators were treated better. Once a seasoned gladiator, they were given massages, hot baths, and women. Gladiators were expected to fight between five and three times a year and were given a public banquet before each game. They were expected to die honorably, and if they did not they were put to death in terrible ways.
The poem shows that the young man grows up to become a fighter who does not know when to stop all in the matter of a few lines that amount to one sentence. Then in an even shorter sentence, he dies in combat. Writing this as two sentences accentuates the idea that life is short, but can even be shorter if we can not get along. The speaker’s mourning tone probably ponders if the man avoided fighting maybe he could have lived longer as suggested when mentioning killing war elephants were not enough for the man who immersed himself in the battleground. By putting oneself in an environment of anger and aggression to the point of a questionable noticing of an arrow inside of oneself can only lead to a shortened