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Death Of The Ball Turret Gunner

Decent Essays

Randall Jarrell put much thought into his poem, “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner”, but more specifically into the tone. Tone is the attitude an author has towards his or her subject and it has the power to be bland, or have a true impact on the literary work being presented. Jarrell effectively used imagery and diction to create the attitude he wanted his readers to conclude in their own way. First, Jarrell uses imagery abundantly throughout his lyrical poem. The character used in the poem is compared to what we would believe to be an animal, with fur of some kind. The comparison to an animal hunched over with frozen fur gives us, as readers, a visualization of how small the Ball Turret Gunner is and allows us to understand that the men in these positions are nervous and in high altitudes, thus more than likely frozen with sweat. Additionally, Jarrell specifically names six-miles above the earth which engages readers in knowing that this is not a little mission, as they are miles above earth’s surface. Also, the gory ending of washing the flesh out of the turret with a hose enables readers to visualize how this situation typically pans out. Simply due to the goriness of the situation, readers are likely to remember this than if the process were to be sugar-coated and made to be more pleasant. Imagery paints this five-line poem into a story-board and gives the setting a whole new meaning. Secondly, diction is a key aspect in this poem and is highly important due to its

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