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"Fall In" Harold Begbie

Fall In' by harold Begbie is an example of Jingoistic poetry from the start of the First World War. It was written as a genuine call to arms, and would have been published in newspapers or magazines. Jingoistic poetry is highly patriotic, and would have aimed to almost scare men to enlist, by threatening them with cowardice. The ideals of bravery, comradeship and fighting to defend loved ones aided many men to cope with the war, and aided many grieving mothers to believe their sons died for a reason.

During 1914 civilians hugely believed that going to war was a noble thing to do, and there was huge excitement and build-up towards it. The poem promotes a patriotic ideology suggesting that soldiers should give their “country a hand”, making it seem as if fighting for England is a mans duty.

Bigbie’s “Fall in” illustrates the pressure that was placed on men, as society saw going to war as the norm, and Bigbie targets his poem at the non conformists and suggests through the poem that they will be rejected, humiliated and mocked. Bigbie uses a series of questions, such as “where will you look Sonny” to make the readers at the time question themselves, and force themselves to explain and justify why they don’t want to go war.


"Dead Mans Dump" Issac Rosenburg

In "Dead Man's Dump," you see the wheels of a truck crushing bones already perished. "The wheels lurched over the sprawling dead," they are driving over a battle field to pick up the survivors. The drivers of the truck are playing the role of God, by coming and saving the soldier's from death. Another reference to God in the same poem is when Rosenberg refers to the "limbers," wheels of a cannon being pulled, carrying the dead as "Stuck out like many crowns of thorns," symbolizing Jesus's crown of thorns that he wore at his crucifixion. Finally they hear a sound, one of the soldier is still alive. He begs the cavalry to hasten their search and find him. The troops hear him and begin to come barreling around the bend only to hear the dying soldier murmur his last screams.

In "Dead Man's Dump" death are the wheels of the truck that go crushing everything in its path. The main part of the poem that shows this is when the soldier is cries out to the living to come and save him. They dash off in search of the soldier only to make it just as he is slipping into death's hands. The last few lines of the poem read, "We heard his last sound, and our wheels grazed his dead face." Earlier in the poem the wheels had been crushing bones like they were death taking all of these lives.

When you read "Dead Man's Dump" and you visualize it, not just read it you see a battle field that is destroyed by war. Bodies lay everywhere. The way the author describes the gruesome detail of the dead troops, "A man's brains
splattered on a stretcher-bearers face;" one can literally see the guts. Rosenberg uses spectacular imagery in that piece. The general picture that Rosenberg tries to get across to the reader is that of the bodies just lying around all over the ground. Carnage exists everywhere the reader can imagine.

In "Dead Man's Dump" the soldier at the end of the poem begs for the wagon to come pick him up, yet they get to him just as he takes his last breath.


"The Send-Off" Wilfred Owen

There are no linguistic experiments in 'The Send-Off; the rhymes are full, not half, and the groups of two and three lines form four perfect verses. It is quieter-toned than some others - being set in England, not the war zone - but makes its point with utter clarity.

The poem was written at Ripon, where there was a huge army camp. The troops have just come from a sending-off ceremony - cheering crowds, bells, drums, flowers given by strangers - and now they are being packed into trains for an unknown destination. From the beginning, the atmosphere seems sinister. The lanes are darkening and claustrophobic; the shed reminds us of execution sheds and slaughterhouses; the crowds have gone elsewhere and they are watched only by 'dull' porters and the uninspiring figure of a tramp. Traditionally flowers have a double significance - coloured for celebration, white for mourning. So the women who stuck flowers on their breasts thought they were expressing support but were actually garlanding them for the slaughter. Their departure is secret, 'like wrongs hushed-up', because the true nature of what is happening to them is being concealed.

Owen seems to have distrusted public emotion and felt that the highly-organised displays which have just ended can only obstruct true communication between people, and clear thought. Of the men who have been sent off, only a few will survive and each of them must find his own way back; the healing process needs silence and privacy. In a letter home, Owen had described how the Germans 'choked up the wells with farmyard refuse', and the image found its way into two poems, 'Strange Meeting', where blood is washed away by 'sweet wells', and this one. Village wells were a traditional meeting-place where travellers can find refreshment, and half-known roads, it is suggested, are better than the broad highway of public opinion

During and after the First World War, many people could not bear to watch a train moving away because this reminded them of a last meeting. Today, we think of trains being packed with victims for the concentration camps, other wrongs which were hushed up.