Essay Questions

What is the effect of the unusual choice of commencing the poem with an adverb?

One of Stephen King’s most oft-quoted pieces of advice to writers is the warning that “adverbs are not your friend.” And this is advice is mainly directed toward prose writers and not toward sentences which begin with adverbs. One can only imagine just how low his opinion sinks in that particular instance. Nevertheless, there is always an exception to any literary rule and King would likely argue in favor of the choice of the poet to commence “Bayonet Charge” with an adverb like “Suddenly.” The entire narrative is obsessed with movement, speed, and flight. “Suddenly” is a word that throws a reader directly into the action, fostering a sense of chaotic action even before the writer gets around to any description imagery. In addition, because of the rarity of adverbs as the first word in a poem, it is also instilled with the built-in power to create the sensation of things being a little “off” and circumstances existing on unsure footing.

What is the ultimate message the poem is conveying about the principles and morality on the battlefield?

“Bayonet Charge” is an anti-war poem in the truest sense of the word in that it criticizes the most elemental aspects of war which form the very foundation for its mythological status. Literature has historically been applied to recounting war for purpose of propaganda. Sometimes it elevates political ideology and sometimes it hails the moral high ground, but no matter what something is always consistent and pervasive: the honor of the soldier. For millennia, soldiers have been portrayed as men of principles and convictions in their actions during the heat of battle. Separated from the general and politicians pulling the strings, the soldier is always the reliable warrior putting his life on the life with courage and conviction. In an instant, this poem undoes all that by stripping away the glorious illusions of war to portray the uglier realities.

What can be effectively summed up as the driving motivation behind the soldier’s frenetic flight through the narrative?

The text which penetrates into the mind of the soldier makes it clear that his thoughts are not turning to king and country, honor and patriotic duty, or the brotherhood of soldiers. At various points during his mad dash through the bullet-ravaged battlefield, he contemplates his humanity in ways that questions its existential nature. Is he a man, a machine, or a simple beast? The most poignant moment of the poem may be that moment in which he compares himself to someone who finds himself in flight from an unseen and unknown danger in the middle of the night, not sure what the threat might be that pursues him, but absolutely certain of the pursuit. Only one emotion is capable of driving someone to do that and this is the stimulation for his actions on the battle: pure, primal terrified fear for his life secure in the knowledge that someone is trying to kill him even if he has no idea who or where that that person might. Surviving the constant assassination attempts on your life as a soldier in the heat of war, the poem effectively states, is the result not of bravery or courage nearly as much as it is pure abject fear.