Homecoming Bruce Dawe Analysis

The arrival of the new child is a fundamental change to the lives of the entire family, but his departure is tantamount to the execution of the heart. The upheaval of life is immeasurable. Everyone will test the end, but each one will die in a different way. Bruce Dawe constructed his opinion about life and death through his poems “Enter Without Such as Knocking” and “Homecoming” to show that the life is too short, and it forces every single one to live under its harsh conditions until the last breath. In his poems, Dawe describes social issues in the life cycle that affect several people. In “Entering Without Such as Knocking," Dawe describes the death of a selfish man who optimistic about losing himself and his family for money. In "Homecoming," Dawe characterized the death of young soldiers who sacrificed themselves without fearing the death. Ultimately, in both poems, death is the fact that any machine will eventually fail.

Wilfred Owens poem “Dulce et Decorum est” and Bruce Dawe’s poem “Homecoming” are poems from different wars, however both highlight the indignity of war. Owen’s poem is broken up into three sections, where he expresses the torture soldiers suffer

Bruce Dawe’s poem ‘Weapons Training’ is a dramatic monologue about the harsh conditions of the training sessions for troops of the Vietnam War. The poem expresses the harsh conditions as well as the dehumanisation of the soldiers. The poem was written in 1970 while Dawe was part of the RAAF. Bruce Dawe uses a variation of language and poetic features to express his opinion and point of view of the Vietnam War. All of the features which Dawe uses contribute to his representation of Australia during the war.

Homecoming (1968), a narrative piece of elegy by Bruce Dawe delineates the Australian soldiers who died in Vietnam war. The whole poem’s tone appears to be ironic and the tempo is inexorable as if the appalling episodes of soldiers are occurring unremittingly. The title itself is ironic because when I think of homecoming it’s something celebratory and lots of partying. But within this poem, Dawe doesn’t

Homecoming by Bruce Dawe describes the homecoming of dead Australian Soldiers from the Vietnamese War, (lines 2-3). The poem has its poet expressing his opinions on man’s response to wars and how vital human life is, the soldier need to be brought home and the brutality and futility of wars between the human’s race. In contrast, Suburban, by David Malouf, expresses to the reader the facade of modern suburbia, lukewarm residency clouded by public idealism and picket fences. “Suburban” suggests similar themes of masked anxieties by apparent political or social orders, which is clearly expressed through the way Malouf describes modern suburbia; as dull and emotionless. Homecoming directly contrasts this and describes a chaotic and destructive, this is demonstrated through the entirety of the poem, poetic

The author of ‘Homecoming’, Bruce Dawe, illustrates and describes the catastrophes of the Vietnam War in a calm but negative tone. Dawe uses this poem to represent the soldiers and the experiences they went through during WW1. The poetic techniques that he used in this poem “homecoming” were Imagery, Onomatopoeia and Repetition throughout the whole poem. Bruce Dawe helps the readers to understand the theme of how war is bad and a tragic waste of human life. This poem takes the readers to a place in time where our ancestral blood lines fought and lost their lives during WW1, in the hopes that future generations would have a better future in life.

The poem was written to show that war is a waste of human life as the soldier knows he will die one day as well as the men around him, just some quicker than others. This can be evident in stanza four of the poem: “I know I’ll join them somewhere, one day.” The language used is more casual than formative, this is effective as it shows the personal feelings and thoughts of the soldier during the time

Joyful Strains is a collaboration of short memoirs written by a group of expatriates about their experiences moving to Australia, and the struggles they faced that shaped them into the people they are today. Deborah Carlyon moved to Australia from her birth country of Papua New Guinea when she was 12-years-old, and has written the story ‘Hidden by the Dream’. Paolo Totaro moved from Italy to Australia when she was only a child and has contributed to the book with her short story ‘Pointing North’. Joyful Strains follows the authors as they explain how they navigated the process of finding a sense of belonging in Australia and establishing their own identities.

Bruce Dawe is an Australian poet. Bruce was born in Fitzroy, Melbourne, 1930. At the age of 16 he dropped out of Northcote High School without completing his leaving certificate. Bruce was the only one of his siblings to attend secondary school. Dawe drifted between careers in his early life, working as a labourer for 10 years, before serving in the RAAF from 1959-68. After leaving the air force, Dawe taught as a Uni lecturer for 24 years. Bruce is now married with 4 children, and has collected a plethora of awards including; The Order of Australia, Ampol arts awards for creative literature, The Patrick white award and the Myer poetry prize (twice).

Australians are known for their bravery and mateship. Defending our country at war is a significant part of the Australian identity. Donald Bruce Dawe who was a soldier during the Vietnam War has written about the horrors that these soldiers faced in his poem “Homecoming”. Jeff Cook’s “Grandpa what did you do in the war?” also highlights the struggles associated with being involved in war. This piece was written for the soldiers who returned home and the ones that lost their lives fighting for Australia.

In the first poem mentioned: Enter Without So Much as Knocking, Dawe shows the living of a child in the Baby Boomers period, and the era after World War 2 (1950's

Donald Bruce Dawe was born in 1930 in Geelong, Victoria, Melbourne, he is one of the most successful and prolific contemporary poets of Australia. He struggled with his studies, leaving school when he was sixteen, working as a gardener and postman. In 1954 he entered the University of Melbourne. He grew up in a household where his father, a farm labourer, was often unemployed and absent from home. The poem ‘Drifters’ by Bruce Dawe should be selected for the prestigious honour of ‘Best Contemporary Australian Poem’ as it is a realism poem, describes Australian lifestyle felicitously, which lead the Australian contemporary audiences easily fall in the poem and deeply engraved in their mind. Bruce Dawe drifted

The poem starts with similar word choices as ‘The Soldier’ but written in the perspective of the mother. The mother tells his son that when he dies he will be in a place of ‘quietness’ and free from the ‘loss and bloodshed’. This reinforces the fact that the battlefield was full of horrors and death. The poem then moves onto how ‘men may rest themselves and dream of nought’ explaining that the soldiers do not have to fear for their lives after their death. This illustrates how they feared for their lives and had negative connotations.

“He was drafted in drums and cheers...some cheered him home, but not as the crowd cheers goals. Only a solemn mad thanked him” Owen shows the irony of the poem by showcases the perspectives of the people. Owen compares the casting of war to a football game. Usually when going off to war or starting a game the soldier is drafted out in cheers by thousands of people and you would expect the same level of cheers to return to or finish with. However in this case only one person thanked him for the hard work which he produced at war. The quote then showcases the irony of the poem. The readers then begin to realize how insensitive people are to completion of war. The insensitivity of people then causes the readers to feel enormous pity and compassion towards the subject on showing bestowed respect and honour towards

An anti-war poem inspired by the events of the Vietnam War, Homecoming inspires us to think about the victims of the war: not only the soldiers who suffered but also the mortuary workers tagging the bodies and the families of those who died in the fighting. The author, Australian poet Bruce Dawe, wrote the poem in response to a news article describing how, at Californian Oaklands Air /Base, at one end of the airport families were farewelling their sons as they left for Vietnam and at the other end the bodies of dead soldiers were being brought home. Additionally, he wrote in response to a photograph, publishes in Newsweek, of American tanks (termed ‘Grants’ in the poem) piled with the bodies of the dead soldiers as they returned to the