Detailed notes of the meaning and analysis of Bayonet Charge, a poem by Ted Hughes, which could be used for revision purposes or aid when answering the AQA English GCSE questions about how power and conflict are portrayed in Bayonet Charge. Includes key quotes and their significance.
In Bayonet Charge by Ted Hughes war is presented as a dangerous place and the
propaganda is broken. To create a feeling of looking into the soldier's life the poem is
written in the 3rd person. This helps the reader sympathise with the soldier. The poem
consists of no labels, names or battles. By removing all labels Ted Hughes presents the
idea that all wars are bad no matter the circumstances. Throughout the poem words such
as ‘stumbling’, ‘lugged’ and ‘raw’ are used to describe the soldier. These words reflect the
soldier's emotions of vulnerability and panic. The poet also uses the colours; ‘green hedge’
and ‘yellow hare’, this could be an image of what the fields were like before and after the
war. They started off flourishing with life and greenery, but the war killed the land and
turned it yellow and dry.
One way in which conflict is presented is through the confusion the soldier feels when he’s
trying to discover his morals. In the last two verses, the soldier has a loss of purpose.
‘Listening between his footballs for the reason of his still running’, he is trying to
understand why he is at war and why he is fighting. He is carrying all this weight of fake
ideals and when faced with death he can no longer understand why. 'King, honour, human
dignity, etcetera Dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm'. This simile shows the soldier
losing his faith in all these ideals that are pressed onto you from childhood. He drops them
as one would drop extra weight like they are no longer important. This phrase could also
be seen as a criticism of war propaganda. There seems to be a subtext in the poem which is
against war propaganda. In the first verse, the poet wrote the line ‘sweating like molten iron
from the centre of his chest’. This phrase is when the soldier initially realises the reality of
war. The words ‘molten iron’ burn hot and are seen as an evil danger. This reflects the evil
and danger that takes place during a war.
In this poem, there is also a lack of power against the nature of death. 'In what cold
clockwork of the stars and the nations was he the hand pointing that second?' These lines
are a rhetorical question emphasising the unknown of death. The phrase ‘code clockwork’
makes another link to the inevitability of time catching up to you. The soldier knows that his
fate now is to die and that time holds all the power over him, he has no control left. The
‘hand pointing’ symbolises God and the need many humans have to look to God in difficult
times. The soldier looks to God to understand what is going to happen to him. The very last
line of the poem; ‘his terror's touchy dynamite’, has an alliterative ‘t’ sound to mimic the
sound made on the timer of the dynamite. This line is also the shortest of the poem as
though the soldier is taking a quick short final breath.
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