Grade 9 Bayonet Charge Revision - Power and Conflict Poetry
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Course
English
Institution
GCSE
Detailed resource produced by a Grade 9 student, taught by a teacher experienced in marking for the AQA exam board, revising quotations for the themes of inner conflict and the effects of war in ‘Bayonet Charge’.
The analysis of each quote is broken down into bullet points, covering AO1, AO2...
BAYONET CHARGE
War/Conflict
Hughes presented the pain associated with conflict – “raw” “Suddenly”
Here, the repetition of the adjective “raw” evokes a sore, burning sensation, which
may mirror the feeling caused by the chafing and unfinished seams of mass-produced
soldier uniforms during WWI, made quickly to meet the ever-increasing number of
soldiers.
The dash before this may represent the voice pausing to think, as if they are vividly
remembering the pain. However, it could also illustrate them gasping for breath due to
their panicked, confused state or perhaps simply from the exertion of running.
The adverb “suddenly” builds on this confusion, suggesting the soldiers were met
with a quick start and running quickly; the conflict appears unpredictable.
Conflict is presented as continuous - “cold clockwork”
The negative adjective “cold” has connotations of numbness and freezing which could
suggest that the speaker feels that time is frozen, and the conflict is inescapable. It
could even demonstrate the terrible conditions that the soldiers faced during WWI,
and how they were expected to continue fighting despite this as if they were run like
“clockwork”.
The metaphor could also highlight the conflict between time and humans – the
soldiers do not have enough time to save themselves or perhaps even to win the war.
It is clear that the voice feels that the war has lasted for too long; WWI was expected
to have been over ‘by Christmas’ and only last a few months, but instead continued
for four years.
The alliteration of the harsh ‘c’ sound here could mirror the harsh reality of war, and
how those with authority ignored the soldiers’ struggle and expected them to continue
fighting. Perhaps Hughes has used the adjective “cold” to highlight how conflict
causes people to no longer be viewed as a person, only a soldier – this may be why
the voice is unnamed and without any personalised features.
Hughes demonstrates the danger of conflict – “green hedge”
First mentioned in stanza one, the adjective “green” would usually have positive
connotations of beauty and safety, however it has been placed along with a continuous
semantic field of war, which could lead to it instead symbolising the great number of
illnesses the soldiers experienced during the conflict in WWI
While it gives the reader an indication of the setting, it seems to have little
significance to the speaker – it is almost as if he doesn’t know what he is doing and is
blind to the truth as he describes it very vaguely (“a green hedge”)
The repetition of this image in the final stanza implies that the conflict constantly
affects the speaker, and although he has tried to mask his fears with positive imagery
of nature, its beauty is almost lost due to the negative, vivid lexical choices and
absence of rhyme
By replacing the “a” with “the” in this stanza, it seems that the speaker has been
running for a while and the hedge has gained importance – perhaps it is his goal to
reach it, or this is where he will meet his death, which would explain why the poem is
written in the past tense
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