Summary
AQA Bayonet Charge Poem Summary
Colour coded summary of Bayonet Charge with context, analysis and methods annotations.
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methods context message/analysisBAYONET CHARGE
● Ted Hughes (1930-1998) was born in Yorkshire, in the North of England, and grew up
in the countryside. He served in the RAF for two years.
● This poem highlights the reality of conflicts and the sheer fear and terror that soldiers
feel. It questions the idea of patriotism and highlights the damage to both humans
and nature that war and conflict can cause.
Suddenly he awoke and was running- raw
● The poem begins as if in the middle of a story, a technique known as in media res,
meaning literally in the middle of things. This works as a ‘hook’ to capture the
reader’s interest, and helps us to feel part of the soldier’s thought process. The
adverb ‘suddenly’ makes the reader confused and unsure of what is happening,
which is exactly how the soldier is feeling when he suddenly wakes up and is
charging forward with his bayonet.
● As the soldier comes out of his trance he accepts the fact that he has to fight. He
must shed his familiar identity as a human and transform himself into a mechanical
‘fighter’.
● Alternatively it could be a ‘flashback’ suffered by a man experiencing what was then
described as ‘shell-shock’ and what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder. If so,
the man will experience the flashback again and again, an unsolved blight on his life,
like the unending propensity/tendency of humans to engage in war.
● In the initial stages of WW1 there was a wave of patriotism and euphoria, which led
to young men volunteering, without understanding what they would face. Given the
rigid class system of the time, poor boys with limited education who left school at the
age of twelve trusted those in power to make wise decisions about the conduct of the
war. Many saw enlistment as an adventure, an opportunity to travel and escape
limited impoverished lives. Soldiers who volunteered would have had a terrible shock
when they began to experience trench warfare. Hence the adverb ‘suddenly’ is used
to describe this awakening and sudden realisation
In raw-seamed hot khaki, his sweat heavy,
Stumbling across a field of clods towards a green hedge
That dazzled with rifle fire, hearing Bullets smacking the belly
out of the air -
● The bullets puncture the air and the image of ‘smacking’ refers to the winded feeling
the soldier has as he runs for his life across the field.
● His ‘numb’ rifle and ‘smashed arm’ have a dual meaning: he could feel numb to the
pain he has to cause with the rifle. He could have literally smashed his rifle into his
arm in his panic.
● This highlights both the soldier’s inexperience and trauma at what he has had to do
in the war.
● In this line the bullets and the air are personified; the ‘bullets’ do the ‘smacking’ and
the air has a ‘belly’. Note that ‘smacking’ is a sharp onomatopoeic sound, suggesting
— ironically — a child’s punishment. What these soldiers are doing is anything but
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