Response To The Poem Beach Burial

Kenneth Slessor’s poignant poem, ‘Beach Burial’ contemplates on the improper and unfair burial that the Australian soldiers, who were at war with the Germans during World War 2, receive as a result of the fact that they could not get back home. The main idea that the poet was trying to get across was that as a result of the soldiers not being able to get a proper burial, they are not able to be recognized and are considered to be just another casualty of war: without honor or recognition. The poem emphasizes sadness on the completely useless waste of life; they are simply left how they had died and are now cared by only nature. In the poem, it appears as if these men are soldiers fighting a war at

In the middle of the poem, the speaker arrives at the number of casualties from the war. When he reads this number he can’t believe that he is still alive. As he reads down the names he uses the visual imagery and simile to describe how he expected to find his own name in “letters like smoke” (line 16). This helps the reader understand how lucky the speaker felt about somehow escaping the war still alive. As he goes

The author was giving a message then at the end of the poem it changes. He was giving the message that war happens to everybody and that they will have to go to war at some point in there life. The problem is that they don’t know the bourdon that it puts on the people that he has supported and been supported by until his son is sent of. He gets a totally different feeling when he doesn’t know what could happen to his son. He gets his message across by proving that every body has something to do with war wether they like it or not. Your parents might have been to war, if not them then your uncles, cousins, friends, or your neighbors(old men). Then if it isn’t them it could be your child who is going and the feeling is different, you lose the feeling of security when you cant protect your child. He

War is a scandalous topic where peoples’ views differ as to what war is. Some people see it as pure evil and wicked while others think that it is brave and noble of what soldiers do. Looking at poems which had been written by people affected by war help show the messages which are portrayed. The two sets of poems which show different views of war as well as some similarities are “the Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred Lord Tennyson, “To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars” by Richard Lovelace and “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen, “The Song of the Mud” by Mary Borden. Both these poets use linguistic devices to convince the reader of their view of what the war is. Tennyson and Lovelace show how war is worthy

In the second stanza the distinctive experience of power is present. The use of the technique of imagery and emotive words “to pluck them from the shallows and bury them in burrows’ tells us that the soldiers were strong, loyal and had enough power within a degree to assist fellow soldiers. The use of personification to create sound “sob and clubbing of the gunfire” This leads the audience to understand what the soldiers were up against without even directly saying it. The imagery visually shows the scene in their

World war two, is said to be the deadliest six years in the twentieth century. This war caused sixty million men to die and helped the United States to get out of the Great Depression.

This poem dwells heavily on the problems in war. It describes how high the death toll is for both sides. Slessor uses “convoys of dead sailors” to show that all these dead body’s are very much alike, with their movements and feelings being the same. It also outlines a major problem in war, being able to identify and bury they dead properly.

Kenneth Slessor’s poem, Beach Burial, outlines soldiers being rolled up on to the beaches from the surf, unidentified, each being buried as an unknown seaman, irrespective of which side they were on. Slessor’s elegy for the dead soldier’s in World War Two illustrates a main message, the idea of hope and despair. Hope is that there is an afterlife and futility is what they have in common. It is the belief that once we die there is something after, something more, life does not just end. The last line of the poem, “Enlisted on the other front” suggests there is another line on the other side, an afterlife theory. The soldiers at war grasp onto any sort of hope they can, as their mortality is foreseeable. Inversely, there is a sense of complete absence and loss of hope, despair. Despair is the horrible nature of war and the wasteful nature of it, its complete uselessness. Slessor constantly refers to the idea of despair throughout the poem, “Whether as enemies they fought” and “Dead seamen, gone in search of the same landfall” are both examples of the concept of despair. Just as their

Although the concepts of love and war seemingly consist of very contrasting aspects, the horror of war forms fraternal love and camaraderie. This is demonstrated through the Persian Gulf war poem ‘Beach Burial’ by Kenneth Slessor, where war and death is seen as agonizing and traumatic but also as a chance to come together. At first, the brutality and destructiveness of war is exhibited in the irony, ‘The convoys of dead sailors come,’ describing the soldiers as if they were ships in a fleet to reflect on how war affects individuals’ lives. This powerful line epitomises how you must love something enough to be prepared to die for it. The feeling of patriotism and fellowship indicates how love and war, however paradoxical, are intertwined with

In the poem “War is Kind”, It expresses how war is kind, but in fact it actually isn't. It talks about how people should not cry or be sad as a result of war being kind, but in reality they are always going to be sad. It also touches on the fact that the people in the war were “born to drill and die.” Like the author saying war is kind in reality these men were not born just do die on the battlefield. They still have a family that is going to be sorrowful if they die from battle, but may bring joy to there eyes when they notice how much the war impacted or country and there family was part of it.

He uses these three themes because they can cover what happened and how people felt during the wars. There is also an ironic tone to the poem because it is difficult to understand war being kind in any way. ‘War is Kind’ is a poem that focuses on the loss of three women who have lost their lover, father. And son in the war. This expresses the the loss and sorrow that can come from a war.

The theme is evident throughout the poem, starting with the title, as it includes the word “death.” The subject sees death as an inevitable part of his life, and most likely joined the war after “[he] balanced all [and] brought all to mind” and viewed his life as “The years to come seemed to waste of breath, / [and] waste of breath the years behind” when compared “with [the speaker’s new] life, [and] death.” This leads to an interpretation that he has accepted that death is imminent and in fact, is welcoming it since he “know[s] that [he] shall meet his fate/ Somewhere among the clouds above.” There are other interpretations to this poem, but the readers can discern this: death is certain and

As the poem progresses the reader develops a sense of connection with the soldier and identifies with the challenges they face trying not to think of war. It starts off by the character getting distracted by a moth and refers to it all through the poem. But quickly after describing the moth as a “liquid flame,” he rethinks and remembers “it’s bad to think about war.” The moth is used as a distraction for the character and keeps pulling his focus to different things. He relieves himself by lighting a pipe and trying to think of rain but then questioned “why won’t it rain?” This line is a way of expressing the fact that he wants the world to be cleaner and prettier and creates imagery for the reader. Then he thinks of books and tries to get himself to read one but instead he tells himself, “yet you sit and gnaw your nails, and let your pipe out, and listen to the silence: on the ceiling.” the moth then draws his attention outside and he imagines ghost out in the garden, “old men with ugly souls,” is what he sees. But tries to redirect himself to the fact that he is safe at home, although he can still hear gun sounds in his head and describes himself as “going crazy,” and “going stark, staring mad because of the guns.” Sassoon right through the entire poem effectively conveys

“The Soldier” is a poem about a generic, yet ideal soldier, which is indicated by Rupert Brooke’s use of the word “The” instead of “A” when describing the soldier in the title. The usage of “I” and “me” in the poem suggests a first person point of view, which makes the poem more personal and realistic to the reader. This poem is a sonnet because the first stanza contains eight lines and the second stanza contains six. Throughout “The Soldier,” the repetition of “English” and “England” shows how important his homeland is to the soldier and his high level of patriotism. In line five, England is personified, and although England is not a living thing, the soldier sees his country as his creator and as a sort of mother figure. Brooke’s use of alliteration throughout the poem helps it flow; the use of caesura breaks up the lines. Perfect external rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter are used throughout the poem, which both give the poem flow and rhythm. The “dust” in lines four and five is a metaphor for the soldier’s life; England created him and he will become “dust concealed” when he dies and is buried. The first stanza of “The Soldier” uses various lines of imagery: “some corner of a foreign field… In that rich earth a richer dust concealed… flowers… Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.” These forms of imagery emphasize the soldier’s death and how his death will cleanse him of any wrongdoings he had done in his time on earth. The “rivers” and “suns” are personified as

The ‘soldier’ is described as having his uniform on fire, regarding the Gulf War as there was a picture of a soldier on fire coming out of a tank. Furthermore, the ‘boy fusilier’ and ‘farmer’s son’, specifically ‘boy’ and ‘son’ tell us that the soldiers were young; creating empathy for them. These are used as hints by the poet to tell the reader what the poem is about; the effect of the gulf war on nature, humans and animals.