There are fifteen poems in the GCSE Power & Conflict anthology.

For your exam, you will be given one poem in full, printed on the page, and you will be asked to compare this poem to another from the anthology.

All of the GCSE English Literature course is closed-book, meaning that you will need to learn at least three lines from each poem. 

It is possible to get top marks for this question by making sure that you know the following:

• What the poem is about

• What the poem means

• The methods the poet uses to convey their message

• The links between the ideas of other poems in the anthology

Synposis

Whatever the question is, it is important that you understand what the poem is about. This will support you in adapting your argument to fit the focus of the question. This section includes:

• A general overview of the poem

• A detailed look at the poem line-by-line

• Analysis of the poem, giving Ted Hughes’s intention and message

A General Overview of the Poem

Bayonet Charge explores the psychological impact of military conflict on young soldiers who could not have anticipated war’s terror. The speaker, a third-person observer of a soldier, details the abrupt and traumatic experience of his awakening in a live warzone. The poem depicts an immediate and disturbing vignette into the life of a bewildered, terrified, and progressively volatile soldier caught in the crossfire.

Line-by-Line

Suddenly he awoke and was running – raw

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 poem opens with the adverbial “Suddenly” to establish action immediately. This ‘in medias res’ opening is reinforced on the same line with the two dynamic verbs “awoke” and “was running” separated by only one word, reflecting the speed with which he began running after waking. Indeed, the progressive tense aspect of “was running” implies both that the running came before the waking and also that there was no decision to run; it was reflexive. This progressive tense aspect continues – “[s]tumbling” and “hearing” – indicating that these actions are beyond the soldier’s control and even apprehension. 

This bewilderment creates a sense of vulnerability for the soldier, which elicits real concern from a reader when the brutal military language is employed: “dazzled with rifle fire”, “[b]ullets smacking the belly out of the air”. Whilst figurative language is included, there is no euphemistic covering of the concrete nouns “rifle” or “[b]ullets” – instead the anthropomorphism afforded to the “air” reminds us that there is also a human “belly” that can be targeted here, especially as he is barely conscious.

He lugged a rifle numb as a smashed arm;

The patriotic tear that had brimmed in his eye

Sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest, –

In the second part of the first stanza, the haplessness of the soldier that generates sympathy is enhanced when it describes the rifle he carries with the simile “numb as a smashed arm”. It is not only violent imagery, but also points towards the soldier’s impotence as a man of action – the gun is as much good to him as a broken limb, so he will continue to “lug” it about and not use it.

The immediacy and chaos is then briefly paused for a moment of reflection on the part of the speaker (the soldier himself cannot stop to think). The speaker notes that the “patriotic tear that had brimmed in [the soldier’s] eye” previously has now turned to “molten iron [in] the centre of his chest” – a stirring encapsulation of expectation coming up against reality in war. There is no time for patriotism when the fight-or-flight survival instinct is triggered and sets the heart racing and the body flooding with adrenaline. 

In bewilderment then he almost stopped –

In what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations

Was he the hand pointing that second? He was running

The next stanza has the soldier briefly coming to his senses, “almost stopp[ing]” to reflect for himself on what he is doing, “[i]n bewilderment”. The rhetorical question that follows is the crux of the poem’s antiwar sentiment. He wonders at how he has become a puppet, “[a] hand pointing”, for both fate (“the stars”) and the military powers governing soldiers like him (“nations”), in their unfeeling (“cold”) games.

Note that he only “almost” stopped to reflect on this. Actually stopping is impossible, as after the caesura created by the question mark, he “was running” once more. The running did not stop and continues to be an almost unconscious or externally determined fact; he did not run, but “was running” still.

Like a man who has jumped up in the dark and runs

Listening between his footfalls for the reason

Of his still running, and his foot hung like

Statuary in mid-stride. Then the shot-slashed furrows 

The second half of the second stanza begins with a simile that is less figurative and more literal than we have come to expect similes to be. It says he was running “[l]ike a man who has jumped up in the dark” which is precisely what has happened (remember: the first line is “Suddenly he awoke and was running”), and the suggestion that it is like he is seeking out “the reason / Of his still running” is in keeping with the factual account of his “Stumbling [...] bewilderment” before this with little agency or direction. 

His foot hanging “like / Statuary in mid-stride” is of course more figurative, in contrast, because there quite simply is no time for stopping like this, such is the directionless urgency of his running. Indeed, this illusion is cut through after the caesura with the abrupt adverbial “Then” and further references to military action: “shot-flashed furrows”. The stanza ending mid-sentence, before the main verb, creates a sense of uncertainty from moment to moment that corresponds with the soldier’s own experience.

Threw up a yellow hare that rolled like a flame

And crawled in a threshing circle, its mouth wide

Open silent, its eyes standing out. 

The only other living thing in the poem emerges from the furrows: a “yellow hare” that was “[t]hr[own] up” and “rolled like a flame”. This simile, coupled with the somewhat violent imagery of “threshing circle” might frame the hare as enemy, which would likely be the reflexive response of a soldier. However, the hare is clearly a victim: a bewildered animal caught in something it doesn’t understand, like the soldier (“roll[ing]”, “crawl[ing]”, with “mouth wide / Open silent” and “eyes standing out”). It is a mirror image of the soldier: terrified and hapless (but at least unarmed).

He plunged past with his bayonet toward the green hedge,

King, honour, human dignity, etcetera

Dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm

To get out of that blue crackling air

His terror’s touchy dynamite.

In the final section, the soldier is for the first time an active figure in his own life: “He plunged [...] toward the green hedge”. The only time he appears aware and purposeful (“plunged”) is when he is seeking refuge (the “green hedge”). The way the next line stands alone (“King, honour, human dignity, etcetera”) seems to suggest that these are his motivators for “plung[ing]”, if somewhat undermined by the dismissive “etcetera” – but the enjambed verb “dropped” corrects this reading, as those listed items are “luxuries” that can be abandoned first in a panic situation (“yelling alarm”) like this. The asyndeton and use of “etcetera” emphasises his hurry.

Truly, his motivation for “plung[ing]” is given by the speaker: “[t]o get out of that blue crackling air”. As a final piece of ambiguity of phrasing, though, the enjambement of the final line suggests that, whilst he could be trying to “get [himself] out”, he is more likely trying to get his “terror’s touchy dynamite” (his volatility, as a scared man with a bayonet) out of the action. His one and only wilful move of the poem is to remove himself as a threat from the battlefield: a tragically touching insight into the mind of an innocent soldier.

Writer’s Methods

This section aims to support your revision by providing you with concrete and clear examples of methods that Ted Hughes uses. 

Remember: methods support meaning, not the other way round. You will gain more marks focusing your essays on the big ideas of the poems and then supporting these ideas with the methods that the writer uses.

Form

The poem is broken into three stanzas of roughly equal length, with roughly uniform stanza lengths and initial capitalisation, making the poem seem at first to be very formally standard. However, there is no rhyme, nor is there a consistent meter; there are exceptions to the stanza length (the middle stanza is ‘missing’ a line) and the line length; and there is a dramatic abundance of enjambement and caesurae. The poem, therefore, parallels the soldier within the poem: performatively sound on the surface, but utterly chaotic within.

Structure

The poem is divided into three portions: the initial bewildered waking in an incomprehensible world; then the brief moments of reflection; and finally the desperate bid for escape. These are neither equal nor discrete; they overlap and zig-zag, reflecting the soldier’s bewildered experience in real time. The middle stanza is a line shorter than the first and last, meaning that the climax point of the “shot-slashed furrows” about to provide something is ellipted and the anticlimax of the “yellow hare” takes its place, heightening the poem’s central theme: war is unpredictable.

Language

The grammar of the verbs used throughout the poem is perhaps the most striking linguistic pattern. Due to the “bewilderment” of the soldier, he rarely acts of his own volition. Instead, his actions seem to be happening to him, as reflected in the progressive aspect of the verbs throughout: “was running” (X3), “stumbling”, and “[s]weating”. When he does act, it is impotent (“lugged a rifle numb as a smashed arm”), incomplete (“almost stopped”), or passive (“listening”). Only in the final stanza, when he is fleeing the fray, is he an active agent: “[h]e plunged”, a dynamic verb in the preterite tense and active voice.

Context

At MyEdSpace, we use this analogy to discuss context – ketchup, salt and chips.

If you ordered a portion of chips, and asked for salt, you wouldn’t then dump the salt into the corner of your chips and start dipping each individual chip into the salt. 

When you put salt on your chips, you sprinkle it over, sparingly, so as to give a good coverage of salt across the chips as a whole. Context is just like salt on chips. 

Context is not ketchup – because it would be appropriate to squeeze ketchup into the corner of your plate and dip each chip in (and in fact, that is advised).

So when you’re including contextual information in your essays, sprinkle it across the essay, just like you sprinkle salt on your chips.

Let’s link the context to the key ideas and themes of the poem.

Biographical Insight

Written by Ted Hughes for his maiden collection ‘The Hawk in the Rain’ (1957), this is a poem that capitalises on known experience (his father fought in and survived WW1 whilst Hughes was a teen during WW2) with Hughes’ trademark vividness and brutal realism.

Antiwar Sentiment, at a Distance

Whilst Hughes’ poem aligns politically with Wilfred Owen’s (and other antiwar poets such as Siegfried Sassoon), he wrote from a more detached experience: composing this decades after the war it depicted (WW1), and without the lived experience of being a soldier.

Comparison

You are required to write an essay in your exam that is a comparison of the ideas and themes explored in two poems from the Power & Conflict anthology. Therefore, it is very important to revise the poems in pairs and to enter the exam with an idea of what poem you will choose to compare once you know what the named poem is.

Bayonet Charge and Charge of the Light Brigade

Both poems depict soldiers ‘charging’ in a war context, hence the titles’ parallels. Both poems depict the vulnerability of soldiers in the context of greater forces. However, Bayonet Charge focuses on the individual experience of a hapless soldier, whilst Charge of the Light Brigade focuses on the heroic downfall of an entire brigade of apparently heroic soldiers.

Similarity:

Both poems depict soldiers as vulnerable to the violence of war.

Evidence and Analysis 

Hughes’ poem gives an insight into the fragility of an individual soldier against the backdrop of a raging war. Despite the “Charge”, of the title, the language attributed to the soldier is indicative of feebleness and inaction: the verbs “sweat[ing]”, “[s]tumbling”, and “lugg[ing]”, in a bid to “get out”. These weak-bodied verbs stand in stark contrast to the violent verbs associated with the active war: the hedge “dazzl[ing] with rifle fire”, and the “[b]ullets smacking the belly out of the air”.

Tennyson’s poem depicts the hopelessness of soldiers charging into what is predetermined to be a doomed mission. Their destination is repeatedly called “the valley of Death” or “the mouth of hell”, before they even reach it, before being confirmed as a place where “horse and hero f[a]ll”, whence they shall return “[n]ot the six hundred”. Despite their heroism, they stand no chance of returning a full army.

Difference:

The poets present totally contrasting degrees of heroism from the soldiers.

Evidence and Analysis

Ted Hughes’ soldier is a terrified man desperate to escape the conflict around him.

In his poem, the soldier sets his sights on safety before he is even aware that he has started the eponymous “Charge”. In the third line of the poem, he is heading “towards a green hedge”, and he seems likely to reach it by the nineteenth line, “toward the green hedge”, with the goal of “get[ting] out” of the fray, due to his undetermined but ubiquitous “terror”. There are two references to propaganda-fuelled motivation (“The patriotic tear” and “King, honour, human dignity, etcetera”), but these are things that have been subsumed by his fear (“molten iron [sweating] from [...] his chest”) or discarded “like luxuries in a yelling alarm”, showing that he is in survival mode now.

Contrastingly, in Tennyson’s poem, the speaker lauds the soldiers’ heroism as they proceed toward certain death.

In his poem, the soldiers are defined as heroes whose deaths are sanitised and euphemised to preserve this tone. The soldiers’ ride to death is characterised with the adverbs “boldly” and “well”; their skilled attack leaves the enemies “[r]eel[ing]” and “shattered and sundered”; and their success, achieving “glory”, is clear. Tennyson has expunged any fear or blood from the memory of the “[n]oble six hundred”, preserving their honour, despite the obvious truth that this was a military failing.