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Significance of symbolism in literature
Symbolism in the literary criticism
Significance of symbolism in literature
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Randall Jarrell's "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" is a five lined poem set in World War Two. The title "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" outlines the entire setting of the poem and tells you everything about the poem. The Poem is about a man who manned a ball turret on a bomber and is narrated by the dead gunner himself. Jarrell's poem can be taken on many levels both on a line by line level detailing the death of a ball turret gunner and as a poem as a whole which has strong abortion symbolism. In the first line of the poem the author writes "From my mother's sleep I fell into the State" The gunner has fallen, this can be taken many ways both physically and mentally. Physically the ball gunner has fallen in battle being shot by a German fighter while psychologically he has fallen in his state of mind. The mother's sleep refers to a time when the ball gunner slept peacefully and had a sound state of mind. The state that the ball gunner has fallen into is the feeling of depression or sickness, but more importantly, his state of …show more content…
mind is complete and utter fear. The ball gunner fall into this mind state, where he is so utterly terrified that he can't fire back, but only fall back and lean on the glass sphere surrounding him. In the second line of the poem the author writes "And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze" The fur the ball gunner refers to is his bombers jacket which was thick and made of fur since the bombers were not pressurized and were open to chilly high altitude air. The wetness is from his own sweat as he tries to deal with his situation and later blood from being shot. In the third line of the poem the author writes "Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life" The ball gunner is alone and literally six miles above the earth. He is not in control of his situation and fate and there is nothing he can do about it. “loosed from its dream of life” refers to the ball gunner dieing and is loosed from his life and even potentially ripped from the ball turret from the force of being shot. In the forth line of the poem the author writes "I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.” The ball gunner has woken to the reality of his end, he sees that with all the flack exploding around him and the fighters shooting at him that he is or will soon be dead.
The word nightmare alludes to his mental state he sees the fighters as more then they really are, he sees them as nightmares and grim reapers ready to rip him from his mortal coil. In the fifth and final line of the poem the author writes “When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose" After the bomber landed the ball turret gunner was simply washed out. It was a s very methodological action giving no thought to who the gunner was. This serves as a very jarring end as the rest of the poem was focused more on the gunners thoughts and mind set. This shows that after death the thoughts and emotions of the person are gone all that is left is the
physical. Going line by line the poem sticks to the title and details the death of the ball turret gunner and what he went through. The poem heavily portrays the insignificance of one death in war showing that even though the gunner went through such a traumatic experience in the end he was just cleaned out to make way for the next gunner. This literal line by line interpretation is only half of the poem, there is another overarching theme of "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"and that theme is abortion. "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" is as much about the death of the gunner as it is about abortion. This theme is further cemented by the author's note to this poem: "When this gunner tracked with his machine guns a fighter attacking his bomber from below, he revolved with the turret; hunched upside-down in his little sphere, he looked like the fetus in the womb." The gunner is hunched in the fetal position in the ball turret much like an unborn baby in the womb.
"The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" really has no verse nor does it have a rhyme scheme, so it would be classified as a regular meter. It has five lines, and is a good poem. It could really have many different meanings, depending on who the reader is. The main meaning that people often hear about, would be, that this guy is a ball turret gunner and has been chosen to go up in battle. When the wind hits his jacket it then freezes and then with no warning the enemy destroys his body. The only thing that the guys on the ground could do to get his mutilated body out is to wash the turret out. Many people believe that this poem was influenced by his experience in the Air Force. Jarrell wanted to be a gunner. When his chance came up, he was not chosen to be the gunner. He was then transferred to Tucson to serve as an B-29 crewman.
He drew inspiration from his brother-in-law, whose experiences during the Vietnam War are the basis for the song’s narrative. The song is thus a narrative style confession, and the title is significant in that it summarises the central theme of regret found throughout the writing. The subtitle (A Walk In The Light Green) describes the dangerous treks through lightly forested areas, where landmines were found most prominently during the Vietnam campaign. Perhaps the most powerful poetic device used in this writing is that of point-of-view, this being the retelling of the story from a first person perspective, allowing profound understanding of the inner thoughts of the character. Working in conjunction with this powerful medium is the shift between present and past tense in the verses and chorus of the song. Transitioning from a recollection of the “long march from cadets” to a plea as to “why [he] still can’t get to sleep?” (Schumann) juxtaposes the horrors of war with the mundane reality of civilian life. The meter of the poem stresses many consecutive short words, such as “…young and strong and clean…with my SLR and greens” and “…mud and blood and tears” and the rhyming scheme changes throughout the song between ABCB, ABAB and ABBB. This change contributes to the
My initial response to the poem was a deep sense of empathy. This indicated to me the way the man’s body was treated after he had passed. I felt sorry for him as the poet created the strong feeling that he had a lonely life. It told us how his body became a part of the land and how he added something to the land around him after he died.
Randall Jarret stakes his claim in “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” by using imagery which concurrently expresses the literal horror of death as a World War Two gunner and a metaphorical representation of the death of an aborted child. By connecting the disparate themes with dual imagery, he creates an impact greater than either standing on its own.
Even though it is a short 16 lines long, Emily Dickenson’s poem “I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—” is full of death and darkness as well as light and life. Throughout the poem, seeing and sight are major topics which serve as a sense of irony for the narrator who is dying. Dickenson is able to describe death in a very vivid and colorful way that makes readers feel as if they are at the bedside of the dying narrator. She is excellent in her use of hidden meanings and references for such a short poem— this is the mark of an exceptional poet .
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
In struggles of powers stretching worldwide, nobody wins. Death hunts all sides equally and cooly, whether axis or ally. This is, of course, is in reference to not just all wars, but more specifically the second World War, the War after the War to End All Wars, the cleanup on what the Great War swept under the rug. The second World War not only tore open the scars left by the first, but gave rise to a slew of new ones on the next generation; these scars being even more gruesome than before due to unfortunate advancements in war. Randall Jarrell in his poem “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” uses tone, and the tone’s subsequent change, diction, and imagery to show the atrocities of war even more so than the most cruel words
Have you ever considered the thought of dying, or better yet being dead? In “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner,” Randall Jarrell introduces his readers to an airman. Jarrell takes his readers into the airman’s experience and days in the devastating World War II. In the beginning of the poem the author states how the airman felt safe in his mother’s womb, but later fell into the States. It seems as if he is a child who has been thrown to the Federal government. Jarrell is portraying how instead of being born into a world of love and peace the airman was awakened into a nightmare of the real world.
‘Poetry can challenge the reader to think about the world in new ways.’ It provokes the readers to consider events, issues and people with revised understanding and perspectives. The poems Dulce Et Decorum Est (Wilfred Owen, 1917) and Suicide in the Trenches (Siegfried Sassoon, 1917), were composed during World War One and represented the poets’ point of views in regards to the glorification of war and encouraged readers to challenge their perspectives and reflect upon the real consequences behind the fabrications of the glory and pride of fighting for one’s nation.
As the poem begins, the speaker conveys that there are “[graves] that mark our place; and in the sky / The larks, still bravely singing, fly” (McCrae 3-4). Here the author is using the imagery of the free flying larks, as they resemble the soldiers singing out their wish to be glorified, and their jubilation that they are finally free from the war. This goes on to prove that the soldiers are carfree about their fatality, as long as they receive the recognition to exemplify their contributions to the war. Subsequently, later on in the poem, the soldiers mention “If ye break faith with us who die / We shall not sleep, though poppies grow” (McCrae 13-14). By expressing the soldier’s earnestness in others continuing on their honor, it shows how soldiers will concentrate on continuing their individual glory and prestige even if they themselves cannot continue it any longer. The numerous amount of lost lives precisely depict how soldiers who enlist in the military, will carry on a past soldier’s glory for themselves, and will risk their lives if that is what’s
These are the first two lines of Jarrell’s poem. “From my mother’s sleep…”(Line 1) alludes the the plane itself; it has become a mother to the gunner. Like a maternal figure, it protects its “child” against the dangers of the outside world. The bomber protects her children (crew). Many bomber crews actually saw their bomber like a mother or other protective, nurturing female. Crews named their bombers and painted these names along with an accompanying figure on the nose for good luck. A famous example of this is a B-17 named “Memphis Belle.” Bombers specifically, hold the ball turret in the belly of the aircraft much the way a mother holds an unborn child in her belly. “And I hunched in its belly until...” (line 2) also characterizes the bomber itself as his mother. The gunner is hunched in the turret much like a fetus hunched in the womb. “…I fell into the State,” (Line 1) finishes the first line and the “state” is sleep. Crew member commonly fell asleep while flying to the target. The flights were 8 or more hours. Jarrell might also be describing another state of sleep. People sleep and dream. That is what Jarrell could be saying here; notice how he said, “state” instead of simply “sleep.” The ball turret gunner has fallen into a dream. The world around him has ceased to exist because he is disconnected, floating in his own
This poem is about a ball turret gunner on the bottom of the plane. It was very cold under the plane, and these gunners would oftentimes fall asleep during their flight and wake up in the middle of the battle. When it became time to land, the landing gear on the plane would sometimes malfunction and the plane would have to do a belly landing. This means that the turret gunner on the bottom of the plane would be killed and his remains would be scattered all across the runway. Jarrell explains all of this by saying, “I hunched in its belly til my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.” This poem presents a strange theme about war. Jarrell seems to suggest that life doesn’t matter in
“Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots / But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots/ Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind” (Owens 5-8) is used to show how empty the soldiers were, tired, lost, and confused about what is going on outside of the trenches. Owens employs imagery and a catalogue to display the PTSD, or insanity that so many acquired while fighting for their lives, “ I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning” (Owens 15-17). We see one of the speaker’s company dying from the gases through the eyes and words of the speaker, “ [The speaker] watches the man succumb to the gas, desperately groping the air between them as he drops to the ground, like someone drowning” (Parfitt). Even the speaker of the poem is part of the imagery used to portray the horrific scene of war, “The speaker is among a company of exhausted men who after a stint at the front are marching unsteadily toward the rear when they are suddenly overtaken by poison gas”
The poem comprises three stanzas which are patterned in two halves; the rule of three is ingeniously used throughout the poem to create tension and show the progression of the soldiers’ lives. There is a variety of rhyming schemes used – possibly Duffy considered using caesural rhyme, internal rhyme and irregular rhyme to better address the elegiac reality. The rhythm is very powerful and shows Duffy’s technical adroitness. It is slightly disconcerting, and adds to the other worldly ambience of the poem. Duffy uses a powerful comparative in each stanza to exemplify the monstrosity and extent of war, which is much worse than we imagine; it develops throughout each stanza, starting with a syntactical ‘No; worse.’ to ‘worse by far’ and ending on ‘much worse’. Similarly, the verbs used to describe the soldier’s shadow as he falls shows the reader the journey of the shadow, as if it’s the trajectory of soldiers’ lives. At first, the shadow is as an act...
...t in it. He seeks to discover the thoughts that one must have as they prepare to die in combat. The airman seems to go through a series of thoughts during the poem as he accepts his fate, touches on his numbness to human life, reflects on his home and his fellow people, cites his reasons for even being in the war, and then claiming his dissatisfaction with his entire life, but not his death. Although Yeats does not tell about the airman's life, the reader is likely to assume that it was the war that caused the airman to think in this way. This shows the profound and dramatic effects that war has on the minds of its prisoners.