Analysis Of Another Poem By Toni Cheng

At the beginning of the poem, Cheng immediately introduces the thought of the government's authoritarian grip over its citizens and subtly shows his repugnance towards their excess power. The role of metaphors helps to exaggerate the government's stranglehold on society. This occurs first in the third line of the first stanza when he refers to the government as the “king”. This metaphor intensifies the government’s dominance and begins to develop the deeper meaning of the poem. The same thought is continued through the use of phrases such as “command” and “pain of court martial”, which once again emphasises the slave like way in which the reservists are forced into the army. The connotations of being forced to do something is that it is usually
unfair, an idea which is solidified by the poet using “battle-weary” to show that the reservist soldiers are now too old, and shouldn’t be forced to do this. Furthermore, his consistent use of plosives in this stanza stresses the almost ‘spitting’ tone in which the poem is delivered. This helps create the idea that the speaker has an intense vehemence for the person/institution he is speaking about [the government].