Essay Plan.
How Representative is ‘Dead Man’s Dump’ of the poetry of WW1?
Compare this poem with two or three other poems, or select more
widely from the collection.
Meaning:
-Representing soldiers’ attitude towards death of other soldiers.
-Revealing truth about the realities of War.
-Authors opinion, centered strongly around his views.
-Shows disrespect towards the “honourable” soldiers who have given
their lives for the sake of their country.
-Those who are nearly dead are treated as corpses anyway, no effort to
help them or ease their pain, there is a lack of respect for them, they are
seen as useless.
-War and horror carries on the same, no day-to-day change of this.
-Both sides of the war are equal in death, just bodies, corpses, seen
useless to the War effort so aren’t mourned over or even identified as a
person anymore.
Tone/Attitude:
-Strongly negative tone, somewhat sarcastic, detached tone also.
-Carefree attitude, describing gore and horror but remaining with lack of
sentiment, indifferent.
-Representing attitude (towards the dead/nearly dead) of the solider
through author’s attitude.
-Adopting their attitude as his own somewhat.
-Attitude of normality, shows how events occurring are usual/everyday
happenings for the soldiers.
-The living are thankful to be alive, always aware of the underlying fear
of death, can come at them at any minute.
Structure:
-Contains 12 stanzas, amount of lines in each varies, from 5-9 but usually
around 6/7 lines long.
-No consistent rhyming pattern, odd words seem to rhyme randomly.
-Length of lines varies somewhat, but mostly remain consistent,
corresponds to rhythm and such, urgency.
Language:
-Horrific, gruesome language is used, describes everything in detail, “our
wheels grazed his dead face.”
-Strong assertive language, gets his point across well.
-Metaphors and alliteration are techniques that are used often and
efficiently, as well as enjambment.
-“The swift burning bee, drained the wild honey of their youth”.
-Personification of the earth, wanting to claim the men, “now she has
them at last” shows the loneliness of their unmourned passing.
-Represents loneliness/emptiness of the dead soldiers, “emptied of godancestralled essences”.
-In the description of the stretcher-bearer being covered in a main’s
brains, he is perceived as being emotionless, as there is nothing else he
can do, he drops the body and leaves it with “the older dead.”
-Powerful, evocative language.
-Alliteration is common, very effective, ”racketed with their rusty
freight”, “stakes like sceptres”.
-Involving language, sounds, images, “shells go crying over them”, “the
dark air spurts with fire”.
Winter Warfare:
-More simplistic structure, four stanzas with four lines each, less of a
seemingly random layout compared to ‘Dead man’s dump.’
-Makes more references to pastoral themes, such as winter and coldness,
“spurs of ice”, “frozen boot”.
-Also includes some harsh language and descriptions, “fingers stuck to
biting steel”, strong imagery also used, very striking and visual language.
-“Left them burning”, this has strong obvious contrast to cold
atmosphere; reference to harshness similar to ‘Dead man’s dump’.
-Has a simple rhyme/rhythm unlike lack there-of in ‘Dead man’s dump’.
-Has a similar meaning of both sides being equal, coldness and death
affects both sides. Become equal in death.
-Also contains technique of personification, mainly of the cold “Colonel
cold” as well as “stalked on into no man’s land”.
-Also personification; “screaming steel”.
-Striking language, brings a gloomy atmosphere to the War, “grey air”,
“spurs of ice”, created negative atmosphere also.
-Technique of enjambment also used, mainly in the last stanza, makes the
final point of the poem clear.
-Not glorifying War, but rather presenting the unpleasant reality of it,
much like ‘Dead man’s dump’.
Millions Of The Mouthless Dead:
-Typical sonnet form, 10 syllables per line, consistent rhythm, there is
only one stanza however, making the poem rather short, rhyme has a
somewhat random pattern.
-Also uses technique of repetition, directly addresses the audience with
the use of “you” often.
-Similar theme, one that praising the dead is worthless, shows that they
aren’t mourned over, lacks sentiment, similar to Dead man’s dump’.
-Sensational words, basic but clear images, horrific imagery is also used
commonly in this poem, “gashed head”, strong visualisation, brutality
similar to ‘Dead man’s dump’.
-Lacking of emotion, no sentiment at all in tone, mourning is a waste of
time, blunt monotone language, “nor tears.”, “nor honour”.
-Repeats “tears” but not “honour” very often, emphasise the mourning
and tears wasted in doing so, but also not wasting honour, even just use of
the word.
-Identity is stricken from the men, once they’re dead, no longer an
individual person but just a small part of the dead, similar meaning/theme
to ‘Dead man’s dump’.
-Men are deformed by injuries past the point of recognition, identity
taken from them.
-Gives the viewpoint of advising people not to “waste their time”
mourning, representing how soldiers act towards dead, emotionless.