Detailed analysis and contextual notes about Kamikaze, a poem written by Beatrice Garland. These notes can be used for revision purposes and aid when answering AQA English GCSE questions about the portrayal of power and conflict in poems. It includes key quotes and their significance.
ne way conflict is shown in Kamikaze by Beatrice Garland is through the debate of why
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the soldier is actually going on his mission. Was it for honour, for ‘a samurai sword’? Or was
it because of trickery? The idea that the soldier went as a result of propaganda is explored
and criticised in the first stanza. Garland writes that the soldier had a ‘head full of powerful
incantations’ which gives the idea that the soldier didn't know the severity of his actions.
Until he was in the air he didn’t realise that his mission was a ‘one-way journey into history’.
His patriotism brought him there but it wasn't strong enough to help him complete the
mission.
nother way in which conflict is presented in the poem is through the father's battle to
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choose between his family and his country. Whilst he is in the air he sees all the beautiful
nature along the coastline before spotting a boat. Whilst looking at the boat a memory
surfaces within him. He remembers his grandfather's boat from his childhood, and a stanza
of happiness is introduced. These memories cause him to turn around and abort his mission
as he doesn’t want to leave his family yet. He still wants to live on this beautiful Earth.
However, in turning around his plane it was as though he turned his back on his country. He
lost his patriotism because didn’t fulfil his mission and he gave up on his country.
In this poem, the soldier is presented with a lack of power as he can do nothing against
society's views of him. When he landed back he was shamed for not completing his
mission. There is a volta and then the entire mood changes. There is a semantic field of
disgrace and humility. The father isn’t accepted back into the community, ‘they treated him
as though he no longer existed’. Even his family left him isolated; ‘my mother never spoke
again in his presence’, in this phrase there is a shift from third person to first person. This
creates a personal link to help present the distance between the family. When the children
grew up even they shut him out, ‘we too learned to be silent’. The word ‘learned’ shows
that they were taught by society to deny their father into their lives. They were engulfed by
the propaganda. The adjective ‘silent’ is quite cold and harsh which shows the final break in
the family. Society taught the children to hide their love for their feeling, ‘this was no
longer the father we loved’. This phrase has a slow pace and calmness in it as though the
daughter was suppressing her emotions.
he final line of the poem is very thought-provoking and leaves the reader to interpret it.
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‘And sometime, she said, he must have wondered which has been the better way to die.’
This line shows the irony in the poem, if the kamikaze pilot had completed the mission he
would have died and left behind a life worth living, but in not completing the mission the
life that was once worth living died. So either way, the soldier was going to die. The poem
ends with the word ‘die’ which shows the inevitability of it.
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