The Death Of The Ball Turret Gunner

The poem was written to show that war is a waste of human life as the soldier knows he will die one day as well as the men around him, just some quicker than others. This can be evident in stanza four of the poem: “I know I’ll join them somewhere, one day.” The language used is more casual than formative, this is effective as it shows the personal feelings and thoughts of the soldier during the time

Jarrell also used a great deal of figurative language in this poem. The entire poem is an extended metaphor. This poem compares the struggles of war with the struggles of being born. More specifically, it compares being killed the belly of a plane and being killed in the womb of a mother. We see

It’s no secret that the horrific violence of war that soldiers bear witness to can affect them negatively. The kind of violence that haunts every aspect of their life, leaving them forever changed. Soldiers suffer from the traumatic events that come with war, long after they have left the warzone. Simon Armitage’s 2008 poem “Remains” delves into the guilt and trauma experienced by soldiers. While Carol Ann Duffy’s 1985 poem “War Photographer” shows bystanders forced to watch the conflict unfold, helpless— change.

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 Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” by Randall Jarrell is able to accomplish so many thing with so little lines-mainly through the use of metaphor and diction. It explains the terrors of wars in gruesome detail and explains the ways in which wars, in a sense “breed” and “birth” death. To some, this poem is seen as the ultimate poem of war, and rightly

Throughout this poem there are multiple ways Hall connects the poem to its core meaning. Located within the title, the word ‘dead’ is used to describe the machine. Being dead is the ultimate end of a life and that uncertainty of death sparks fear among many people. The inclusion of this certain word is used to set the tone of the poem as dark and gloomy and obtain the readers interest. Another method used by Hall to convey the theme of death was through imagery. The entire second stanza is a description of the pilot’s skeleton strapped within the crashed plane. Having such a graphic image portrayed, Hall is able to essentially shock his reader with the gruesomeness that death produces. One of the last things the reader may decipher from this poem is that life, just like war, is a trap. Within the third stanza, the pilot is said to be taking a train to work and is “held/ by the firm webbing” of the train. The webbing infers that the pilot, although not trapped in his plane, is trapped in the roles put forth by society.

“Anthem for Doomed Youth” is one of Wilfred Owens best known poems. It’s about the fallen soldiers who didn’t receive their proper burials and it was as if the young soldiers were just sent there to die just like cattle, “for these who died as cattle”. This aimed at ww1 however I believe that this poem could be used to relate to soldiers today.

Since the beginning of time, humans have sought after power and control. It is human instinct to desire to be the undisputed champion, but when does it become a problem? Warfare has been practiced throughout civilization as a way to justify power. Though the orders come directly from one man, thousands of men and women pay the ultimate sacrifice. In Randall Jerrell’s “The Death of a Ball Turret Gunner”, Jarrell is commenting on the brutality of warfare. Not only does Jarrell address the tragedies of war, he also blames politics, war leaders, and the soldier’s acknowledgement of his duties. (Hill 6) With only five lines of text, his poems allows the reader to understand what a soldier can go through. With the use of Jerrell’s poem, The Vietnam War, and Brian Turner’s “Ameriki Jundee”, the truth of combat will be revealed.

During war, there are two possible outcomes for a soldier engaged in battle—life or death. In the poem Randall Jerrell wrote in 1945, “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner”, the most significant thing one notices about the speaker is the fact that he's dead. The airman is telling the story of his own death from the grave. This gives a different perspective on the poem than if his friend were the speaker. If the airman’s friend were telling the story, it would have a more dramatic detailed account of the incident; however, since the speaker is dead, he doesn’t get too worked up recounting the graphic events that led to his demise. Speaking from the dead allows the airman to completely center the account on himself and not the details of how someone

    Douglas MacArthur, an American general during World War II, described those who fight in war as, “The soldier, above all others, prays for peace; for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.” Throughout history, war has been a part of every nation. From medieval times to present day, there have been a countless number of wars fought and even more human lives lost. Many short stories and poems have been written about the hard times of war, but none have been quite as inspirational as Randall Jarrell’s, The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner. This five line poem described what it was like to be a ball turret gunner during

More specifically, war brings nothing but death, sorrow, and heartache, and the so-called patriots that encourage war only spread toxic misconceptions to youth that fuel the continuous cycle of death accompanying wartime. The poet does more than criticize war itself, but also criticizes those who support and defend war, like the speaker. Phrases like, “These men were born to drill and die” (line 8), “point for them the virtue of slaughter” (line 20), and “make plain for them the excellence of killing” (line 21) exemplify the toxic ideas about war fed to young, impressionable soldiers by war-hungry military leaders. Stating these claims so plainly reveals the absurdity the poet believes such views carry, illustrating his belief that sending young people to war and training them for battle is tantamount to sending them to their imminent deaths while molding them to be merciless killers in the process. Ultimately, the poet illustrates the theme that war is horrific by essentially equating war to death throughout “War Is Kind.” The majority of the descriptions of war in the poem allude to death, such as the deaths of the lover, the father, and the son, and the acrimony of the “field where a thousand corpses lie” (line 11) and “little souls who thirst for fight” (line 7). With every line, Stephen Crane forcefully portrays the monstrosities of war and his unwavering vehemence to all that war

The poet then presents a scene of patriotic relevance as he describes a scene of a regiment marching into battle with their “flag” and “Eagle with crest of red and gold” (17-18). When people think of flags, they think of patriotism and representing their country. Eagles also symbolize freedom but as readers can witness in the work, the poet makes it seem as if these men were created not to enjoy the gift of life for one moment by him saying “These men were born to drill and die” (19). This comes across to the reader as almost inhumane. Then by illustrating an image of a field of thousands of dead corpses makes any reader wonder why people even go to war. The whole fourth stanza paints a picture of living human being going into a battle with most, if not any, making it out alive. Like stated before, the speaker in the poem builds a case for those people that opposed to war even though the title of the poem might

The poem starts with similar word choices as ‘The Soldier’ but written in the perspective of the mother. The mother tells his son that when he dies he will be in a place of ‘quietness’ and free from the ‘loss and bloodshed’. This reinforces the fact that the battlefield was full of horrors and death. The poem then moves onto how ‘men may rest themselves and dream of nought’ explaining that the soldiers do not have to fear for their lives after their death. This illustrates how they feared for their lives and had negative connotations.

‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ is a poem that explores the effect of post-traumatic stress disorder and the mistreatment that the soldiers experience even after death. Although, the speaker is disembodied; Owen’s own voice and

“It's not to hard to sacrifice for someone you love, but it's hard to find someone who’s worth your sacrifice.” When you have a reason for what you do then, it makes it easier to work harder. One example is when you have a job, you work harder so you can get paid money. This can also apply to soldiers in war, they work hard for citizens to live freely. When you are trying to do something that is worth sacrificing you start with what you love and teach or spread it to those around you. A man by the name Randall Jarrell, he was a writer that loved reading and writing and teaching. He had a love for writing, this helped him describe situations in history. His poetry was very deep Horne wrote that, “moving "back and forth between life and the 'life' that is created by writing” Randall tells of life in his stories, in one called The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner. In this poem he tells about the lifestyle that Turret Gunners have in WWII. In The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner, there are 3 messages described.