“The Last Laugh”
Vocabulary--definitions
Guffawed: noisy, crude laugh
 Lofty: great height, noble
 Tittered: a laugh that is quiet
 Vainly: to lack an effect
 Rabbles: a mob, disorderly group
 Languid: lacking energy
 Hooted: loud sounds—normally
disapproval

The Story Analysis
Form:
 Purpose:
 Tone:
 Characters:
 Setting:
 Title:

The title of the poem comes from the old saying, “He who
laughs last, laughs best.” In war time it is death that has the last
laugh—or more specifically the instruments of war, guns.
It is a three-stanza poem that captures the final moment in the death of
three men on the battlefield.
'Oh! Jesus Christ! I'm hit,' he said; and died.
Whether he vainly cursed or prayed indeed,
The Bullets chirped-In vain, vain, vain!
Machine-guns chuckled,-Tut-tut! Tut-tut!
And the Big Gun guffawed. Translation: doesn’t matter
Technique: Interjection/Blasphemous outcry
Effect: Connotes extreme passion/surprise
Technique: contrast
The exclamations contrast
the simplicity of “he said.”
Effect: diminishes the
personality of the speaker.
Who is to blame? The guns or the
soldiers firing them?
if he actually did curse or
pray—it was in vain as he is
dead
Technique: Personification of the guns
Effect: the guns themselves seem to
be mocking the dead—insensitive to
humanity.
Technique: onomatopoeia
Effect: creates the sound of the
battlefield for the readers and
continues the personification.
Another sighed,-'O Mother, -Mother, - Dad!'
Then smiled at nothing, childlike, being dead.
And the lofty Shrapnel-cloud
Leisurely gestured,-Fool!
And the splinters spat, and tittered.
Technique: Interjection/Childish outcry
Effect: Connotes extreme passion/surprise
Technique: separation/pause (grammar)
Effect: the pause before and exclamation after
adds emphasis—both the leisurely nature of the
cry and the message.
Technique: Personification of the guns
Effect: the guns themselves seem to
be mocking the dead—insensitive to
humanity.
Translation: Once again,
cries in vain as he dies
immediately after.
Technique: word choice “childlike”
Effect: mimics the childish nature of
his cries and reinforces the imagery of
young soldiers dying.
Technique: onomatopoeia
Effect: creates the sound of the
battlefield for the readers and
continues the personification.
'My Love!' one moaned. Love-languid seemed his mood,
Till slowly lowered, his whole faced kissed the mud.
And the Bayonets' long teeth grinned;
Rabbles of Shells hooted and groaned;
And the Gas hissed.
Technique: Direct dialogue “ “
Effect: attempts to make a connection with
the reader to individual soldier’s thoughts.
This is immediately cut short when they die
suddenly.
Technique: punctuation ;
Effect: slows the reader down, to focus
on individual lines
Technique: word choice, “love-languid”
Effect: attempts to create an image of the
boy’s thoughts, but the reader soon learns
that he is languid because he is dead not
love.
Technique: Imagery “kissed the mud”
Effect: strong contrast as the kiss
intended for his lover is instead delivered
to the mud.
Technique: word choice, rabble
Effect: connotes that shells are
coming down at random and killing in
the same random manner.
Commentary
Like snapshots taken by a professional
war , the deaths are confronting,
unheroic and gloss over nothing.
 How much laughter is heard on a battle
field? To think of guns as laughing has a
distinct effect. The unreal quality of the
weapons’ laughter might serve to
emphasise the very human reality of the
dying men.
