Home learning Task 2

1)Point of View(P.O.V.): This poem is depicted through a first person point of view who is the soldier. This soldier is currently going through war. This can be shown in parts of the poem like “My heart is pumping adrenalin through all of my veins”, “I run as fast as I can through the lead rain” and “I kept pulling the trigger and reloading and pulling some more”. These evidences clearly show that the soldier feels nervous and scared as he is trying to find cover from all the bullets fired. He is also trying to defend his own life by firing back at the enemies. This clearly demonstrates that the poem is written in the point of view of a soldier. Being a soldier who has once gone through war, the poet’s experiences would make this poem more reliable in depicting the life of a soldier and the horrors of war. By using this point of view, the readers would be able to picture the battlefield clearly in their minds and would understand the feelings of this soldier, at the same time making it more realistic.

2)Situation and Setting: This poem is set during a war and the emotional conflict in a soldier. The soldier and his platoon mates feel helpless and reluctant. They cannot back out as shown “We’re leaving this bird whether we like it or not”. The only way for them to survive is to fight back as shown in this phrase, “I kept pulling the trigger and reloading and pulling some more”. The soldier feels helpless and does not want to participate in the war, yet he has no way out. They are being “pushed into their graves”. The poet is trying to convey the message that war is bad and horrible as it messes with people’s lives and emotions.

3)Language and Diction: The poet uses a lot of army slang such as “the LZ is hot”, “Lock N Load and grab your shit” so that he can paint a clearer picture in the readers mind while reading or analysing the poem. American soldiers use a lot of army slang when they were soldiers as it is part of their culture.

4)Personal Response: Although I have not been recruited into the army(which I would be in 4 years or so), I can empathise and feel how it is to be a soldier in a battlefield. Picking up a gun and firing it can change the life of a person. You would not feel that guilt when you kill a person with a gun. People are forced to fight for their lives and humanity’s ugly side would be exposed. The common feeling of youngsters is that picking up a machine gun, being a sharpshooter is cool. But I guarantee you that once you have experienced something like what the soldier in the poem experienced, you would beg to differ. War is not good.