Randall Jarrell Essay

There are three elements employed by Randall Jarrell in his poem, “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner,” which illustrate the cycle of life and death of the gunner. The utilization of rhythm, use of imagery, and sequencing of events profoundly impact the development of the theme which conveys sending young people to fight a war is essentially ending life before it begins. Each element is evidenced in all five lines of the one stanza poem. Understanding these elements allows readers to grasp the troublesome concept of death through warfare in just five short lines.

There is no doubt that America’s World War II is a rich source of literature and a theme for many writers. As result, they wrote many works about war literature, such as novels, poetry, plays, diaries, and personal narrative.

     The concert has begun after a fifteen minute delay caused from the powder snow that started early on in the day and continued through the evening. There I stood up in front of the small crowd on this snowy Sunday evening. I glanced out upon the crowd as the piano picked up speed and intensity. I knew that I was about to strike that F chord in a few measures. I quickly removed the moisture from my fingers with the cloth I brought with me.

One of Jarrell’s most well known poems is titled Losses. In this poem he tells about the darker realities of war and how easily people die. In a critique done by Charlotte H. Beck, they talk about how Jarrell wrote it, saying, ”Jarrell experiments with multiple identity in the interplay of several speakers united in one--all representing those airmen who were pre combat losses--in training, in simulated combat--but all wasted even before they could be "born" into the real experience of war” meaning, Jarrell cycles through several different people, to give both a feel for the utter hopelessness of the situation for the soldiers in training, as well as the soldiers feeling of

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” was written around the end of World War II in 1945 by Randall Jarrell. During this time period, Jarrell wrote many poems and novels about the army and the war while he was a celestial training navigator (Pritchard). The poem was written later in Jarrell’s service career. The poem is based on the first-person view of a dead, unknown ball turret gunner of a bomber aircraft. The dead gunner tells us he may have been taken away from his mother and he was drafted or “fell” in the United State military service. The dead gunner hunched into the belly of the bomber, into the turret, and his fur jacket and collar got wet and froze. The dead gunner is miles about earth, loosed, or cut loose, from the dream of having a peaceful and prosperous life on earth.

Poetry typically delivers events more deeply and memorably than the original. “The Charge of the Light Brigade” renders the horrors by making it more dramatic, patriotic, and personal. Conceivably, “The Charge of the Light Brigade” does not emphasize and thoroughly describe the original story. But, both the poem and the article emphasize that these 600 soldiers will always be remembered. Nevertheless, the poem’s rhythm and conveyance will have a long lasting and heartfelt effect in reader’s

Randall Jarrell was one of the few poets of his time to vividly and accurately depict the horrible and confusing reality of war. His experience in the military provided him with a deep understanding of both the mind of a solider and a civilian. With this understanding of the human consciousness, Jarrell deeply explores the actions, feelings, and interactions of people in times of war. Through his sympathetic, psychological portrayal of a diverse range of narrative personas in his dramatic monologues, Jarrell displays the dehumanizing forces of war.

The importance of writing one’s understanding of war sheds consciousness upon the cruelty, malevolence, and death by ignorance. Reports of cruelty begins with Jarrell's recitation in his poem “Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” in which he explicitly connects the death of a young soldier to that of an aborted child. Though only 5 lines long, using metaphoric language Jarrell is able to imply that only death can be fermented from the womb of the war. Harboring readers taunt emotions that stick to them like "wet fur". Whilst bringing the audience to a resolution set in stone that war can solely gives the taking of life from another’s child. In comparison, Hemingway transcribes of a man spat back into a life that did not change with him instead

The First World War not only reshaped boundaries, watched empires rise and fall, but it also saw a drastic change in the literary art, and the view of war and all its “glory”. With authors such as Wilfred Owen, the world was beginning to get exposed to the brutality of war from the front line. Like most poets of his time, Owen wrote in the modern period. “And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs” (Dulce et Decorum Est). This gruesome line paints a picture of a gas attack. Although his life on earth was cut short, Owen has truly made a spot for himself among the greatest war poets in history.

I decided that the nearer a writer gets to life the greater he becomes as an artist, and most of my prose writings have been toward the goal partially described by that misunderstood and abused word, realism … I’ve been a free lance during most of the time I have been doing literary work, writing stories and articles about anything under heaven that seemed to possess interest, and selling them wherever I could.  It was hopeless work.  Of all human lots for a person of sensibility that of an obscure free lance in literature or journalism is, I think, the most discouraging.  It was during this period that I wrote The Red Badge of Courage.  It was an effort born of pain—despair, almost; and I believe that this made it a better piece of literature than it otherwise would have been.  It seems a pity that art should be a child of pain, and yet I think it is.  Of course we have fine writers who are prosperous and contented, but in my opinion their work would be greater if this were not so.  It lacks the sting it would have if under the spur

For most, entrepreneurship isn’t easy neither is being a multifaceted multimedia mogul forging a dream. But for Joshua Craig taking a leap of faith wasn’t hard at all.

My poem keeps the orginal rhyme scheme used by Owen, showing relation to his work. I chose a poem because to me, the flow of a poem helped the original not only show an almost romantic flow, but also a cadence something very familiar and often associated with military actions. In my thoughts, my poem may also serve as an after word to the attrocities and death seen in the original work. I am keeping also the references to the war, used to show how it stays with those who see it. My poem serves to show that though many evil and horrid things do come of war, all is not dark in its wake.

Literature, most especially poems, were able to show the true horrors and destructions war caused, be it mentally or physically. Through poems, those who didn’t go to war understood what the men went through, holding a deep pity for them. Sir Herbert Read – writer of ‘The Happy Warrior’ – was a surviving soldier of WWI, he went and fought the war at the age of eighteen/nineteen as an infantry soldier, and his poems often speak of his lost childhood. Wilfred Owen – the poet of ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ and ‘Disabled’ – fought the war until he was twenty-one when he died, he is well-known as one of the greatest voiced for WWI, he spoke for the soldiers to show the pity of war. Richard Aldington – author of ‘Bombardment’ – wrote of WWI through many of his works after going there himself when he was around twenty-four years old, wounded on the western front only a year later.

When I was scanning through the endless list of War poetry, although all spectacular and meaningfully, none of them really sparked my interest, that was until I saw the title “Suicide in the trenches.” I instantly noted the word “trenches” and knew that it must be referring to the trench warfare

Wilfred Owen knew more about modern warfare than most of his readers. Being a soldier himself, Owen saw the full brutality of World War I firsthand. He experienced the terror of battle and helplessly watched countless comrades die from both mechanical and chemical combat. Owen knew that it was difficult for non-soldiers to understand what life on the front lines was really like, so he used his talent for writing to relate the realities of modern warfare to his readers. One of the main points that he tried to make in his poems was that the experience of soldiers in World War I was completely different from the romanticized war stories that many people knew and