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Incident in a future war?
A nuclear arms race began after WW2
as superpowers in the East and West
began testing powerful new weapons.
 The rising of the Iron Curtain intensified
the threat of mass destruction and led to
the Nuclear Fear of the 1950s and 1960s
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At the 1925 Geneva Conference the
French suggested a protocol for the nonuse of poisonous gases: "The use in war of
asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases,
and all of the analogous liquids,
materials or devices, has been justly
condemned by the general opinion of
the civilised world."
 It was signed on 17th June, 1925.
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The poet known as Stevie Smith was born in Yorkshire in
1902 and died of cancer in 1971.
Her real name was Florence Margaret Smith and she
was brought up by her feminist aunt after her mother
became ill and her father deserted his family to go off to
sea.
Deceptively simple, her poems penetrate straight to the
heart of life's greatest fears and anxieties.
They are persistently dark and filled with 'deathwishfulness'.
Stevie Smith was subject to periods of depression during
her life and was preoccupied with death, seeing it as a
release or consolation.
Her poetry has strong underlying themes of love and
death, it is whimsical but fiercely honest and direct.
Incident in a future war
This is a strong metaphor – when the
tide goes out it leaves random
objects stranded
Left by the ebbing tide of battle This was a battleground in
one of the Napoleonic wars
On the field of Austerlitz
The girl soldier Vaudevue sits
Repetition for
Her fingers tap the ground, she is alone emphasis
At midnight in the moonlight she is sitting alone on a
round flat stone.
Alliteration emphasises the
This unusual
combination if her
being a girl and a
solider is unsettling
– it sounds like a
contradiction
moonlight and creates an
eerie setting
The imaginary conference on killing suggests how
seriously war is still taken in the future
Graded by the Memel Conference first
Of all human exterminators
This is a chilling, clinical,
impersonal word
M.L.5.
Has left her just alive
Only her memory is dead for evermore.
She fears and cries, Ah me why am I here?
Sitting alone on a round flat stone on a hummock
there.
A disturbing description of
how shocked and
traumatised she is
Emphasises
Vaudevue’s struggle
and confusion
The ground is
difficult to walk
over – this
contrasts with
the sand at the
end of the
stanza
Rising, staggering, over the ground she goes
Over the seeming miles of rutted meadow
To the margin of a lake
The sand beneath her feet
Is cold and damp and firm to the waves’ beat.
The physical qualities of the
sand contrast with
Vaudevue’s vagueness
Suggests sudden decision
and movement
This adjective is unexpected
– it makes the lake sound
innocent and unappealing
Quickly - as a child, an idiot, as one without memory She strips her uniform off, strips, stands and plunges
Into the icy waters of the adorable lake.
On the surface of the water lies A smooth, peaceful image – it
sounds tempting
A ribbon of white moonlight
The waters on either side of the moony track This sounds unreal
Are black as her mind,
and dreamlike
Her mind is as secret from her
Emphasises the damage
As the water on which she swims,
that has been done to
As secret as profound as ominous.
Ending the stanza with this word hints
that something bad will happen
Vaudevue – she doesn’t
know what’s happening or
what she’s doing.
Repeating this word makes
the sense of doom stronger
Weeping bitterly for her ominous mind, her plight,
Up the river of white moonlight she swims Personification of
the undercurrent
Until a treacherous undercurrent
adds to the surreal
Seizing her in an icy-amorous embrace atmosphere
The oxymoron
Dives with her, swiftly severing
adds to the eerie
The waters which close above her head. atmosphere
Alliteration emphasises the
speed of what is happening.
There’s a double meaning to
‘severing’ – the undercurrent
cuts through the water and
also cuts off Vaudevue’s life.
Alliteration emphasis the
time passing slowly
An enemy sentinel
Finding the abandoned clothes
This is the title of
Waits for the swimmer’s return
a song
(‘Come on, come back’)
Waiting, whiling away the hour
Whittling a shepherd’s pipe from the hollow reeds.
A strangely
innocent image for
a soldier waiting to
kill someone
There are no brackets
around the song title this
time – it’s as if the music’s
getting louder
In the chill light of dawn
Ring out the pipe’s wild notes
‘Come on, come back.’
Enemies have some things in
common
Vaudevue
In the swift and subtle current’s close embrace
Sleeps on, stirs not, hears not the familiar tune
Favourite of all the troops of all the armies
Favourite of Vaudevue
It’s ironic that Vaudevue sand
For she had sung it too the same song as her enemy
Marching to Austerlitz,
Reminds the reader of the
‘Come on, come back.’ beginning of the poem,
The poem ends sadly – Vaudevue
won’t come back because she’s dead
when Vaudevue has just
survived the battle
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Form – the line lengths are a mixture of short
and long, which creates a rambling
conversational feeling, and makes the story
seem even more unpredictable. There is some
random rhyme, half-rhyme and internal-rhyme
which is sometimes unsettling because it is
unexpected. It makes the reader confused,
just like Vaudevue.
Structure - The events in the poem are told in
chronological order, starting just after
Vaudevue flights in the battle at Austerlitz.
The last three lines of the poem link back to the
battle, creating a circular effect
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Repetition – Repeating the title song reminds
the reader of all who have been lost, not just
Vaudevue. Key words are also repeated to
give the poem a cold, deathly feel.
Surreal Language – Strong descriptive images
and personification create an eerie
atmosphere.
Past and Future – There are several references
to places associated with past wars. The
references to war are both historic and
futuristic, suggesting that war and its casualties
are universal and timeless.
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What strikes you about that particular
combination of words?
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'War is mad, crazy; and it makes you crazy as well. All you can think about is
whether in a minute it will be your turn to die.‘ (A survivor of the Rwanda
massacre in 1994, when she was only 18)
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'With tears in her eyes, she told me she had already died four times: that's
the number of times the guards had simulated her execution. On one
occasion they had stood her against a wall, told her she was going to be
shot, and fired blanks at her... As we talked, it was clear that something had
indeed died in her. She was only 15, and I was filled with silent rage about
her torments.‘ (Iranian women accused of political offences)
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'They threatened me with a knife, then held me down and raped me. I said
to one of them, "How would you feel if someone treated your mother, sister
or daughter like this?“ He hesitated, as if he no longer wanted to go on.
Then he went to the door and asked if anyone else wanted to rape me.
There was nobody, so they left.‘ (A Croatian woman during the Bosnian war)
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'I can't work, and I keep forgetting things. The doctor said it was traumatic
epilepsy and explained that it was caused by the war. He told me that I had
experienced many terrible things, that I should try to regain control of my
life, but that it would be very difficult.‘ (A woman who as a teenager in the
1980s had fought in the civil war in El Salvador)
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A former SAS officer and professional soldier:
"A fact of life for a soldier is the necessity to kill
at close range. This can require a degree of
savagery far beyond most people's imagining,
and it's uncivilised to expect young women to
sink to such emotional depths....This state of
mind – going berserk in the old Viking sense - is
not uncommon among fighting men in
extreme circumstances (I've been overcome
by it several times). Under its influence one
loses all fear of death, becoming in the process
a completely barbaric and utterly merciless,
atavistic killing machine."
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Imagery
› What extended metaphor is used in the
poem?
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Structure
› Think about organisation of the poem.
› What do you notice?
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Word Choice
› Stevie Smith's poems are filled with
unexpected word choices. What examples
of this can you find?
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1. How does the poet create a sense of
mystery in the poem?
2. How does the title of the poem relate to
the content?
3. Who finds Vaudevue's clothes? What
impression do you get of this character?
4. Which key words are repeated to give
the poem a cold, deathly feel?
5. What do you think is the significance of
the lake?