Bruce Dawe Weapons Training Analysis
Weapons Training
Bruce Dawe
‘Weapons Training’ was written by Bruce Dawe. Who became one of Australia’s most well known poets in the 1960’s. In 1959 he joined the RAAF, Royal Australian Air Force, and left to become a teacher in 1968. As his occupation in the RAAF, Bruce served as an air force officer, a person of high rankings. And from his years fighting in the Vietnam War, and serving our country, Dawe – along with many others, wrote a substantial amount of protest, or anti-war poems. Many of which became extremely well known.
My personal interpretation of this poem is an instructor, or person of high authority, teaching new recruits about their weapons, and the true experience of war. This is done to ensure that the new soldiers …show more content…
He expects the readers to know to some extent the horrors of war and conflict. Although he provides graphic imagery, he expects the responders to be able to relate them to their own personal experiences, therefore enhancing the quality of this poem by creating a link between the readers and death due to war and conflict. Most importantly, he uses language to attract attention to his views on war and its horrors. He represents this conflict in the form of vivid imagery which adds to the emotional aspect of the text; thus creating interest through tension and the readers’ past experience. Beginning with ‘and’ shows that the sergeant has been talking when the reader enters the picture, and his language is a continuous stream. Therefore, giving the impression to the reader as if they are inside a soldier and he had not been listening and only rejoined the conversation. The speech never does come to a full stop; there are rhetorical questions to raise the involvement of the reader “only to find back home because of your position; your chances of turning the key in the ignition; considerably reduced? Alright now suppose..." In this example, Bruce Dawe uses a rhetorical question to create an atmosphere that is strict and disciplined. The type of language used, is definitely a technique that attracts the audience. Different forms of poetry are used in the text. On the second line of the poem, an onomatopoeia is used ‘and when I say eyes right I want to hear those eyeballs click and the gentle pitter patter of falling dandruff’. Onomatopoeia is the formation or use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to. ‘Pitter patter’ is an example of this. This poem includes a hyperbole, which is defined as a figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect. The poem builds up to the end saying ‘you know what you are? You’re dead dead dead’ this is an exaggeration to emphasise the conflict of
Bruce Dawe
‘Weapons Training’ was written by Bruce Dawe. Who became one of Australia’s most well known poets in the 1960’s. In 1959 he joined the RAAF, Royal Australian Air Force, and left to become a teacher in 1968. As his occupation in the RAAF, Bruce served as an air force officer, a person of high rankings. And from his years fighting in the Vietnam War, and serving our country, Dawe – along with many others, wrote a substantial amount of protest, or anti-war poems. Many of which became extremely well known.
My personal interpretation of this poem is an instructor, or person of high authority, teaching new recruits about their weapons, and the true experience of war. This is done to ensure that the new soldiers …show more content…
He expects the readers to know to some extent the horrors of war and conflict. Although he provides graphic imagery, he expects the responders to be able to relate them to their own personal experiences, therefore enhancing the quality of this poem by creating a link between the readers and death due to war and conflict. Most importantly, he uses language to attract attention to his views on war and its horrors. He represents this conflict in the form of vivid imagery which adds to the emotional aspect of the text; thus creating interest through tension and the readers’ past experience. Beginning with ‘and’ shows that the sergeant has been talking when the reader enters the picture, and his language is a continuous stream. Therefore, giving the impression to the reader as if they are inside a soldier and he had not been listening and only rejoined the conversation. The speech never does come to a full stop; there are rhetorical questions to raise the involvement of the reader “only to find back home because of your position; your chances of turning the key in the ignition; considerably reduced? Alright now suppose..." In this example, Bruce Dawe uses a rhetorical question to create an atmosphere that is strict and disciplined. The type of language used, is definitely a technique that attracts the audience. Different forms of poetry are used in the text. On the second line of the poem, an onomatopoeia is used ‘and when I say eyes right I want to hear those eyeballs click and the gentle pitter patter of falling dandruff’. Onomatopoeia is the formation or use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to. ‘Pitter patter’ is an example of this. This poem includes a hyperbole, which is defined as a figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect. The poem builds up to the end saying ‘you know what you are? You’re dead dead dead’ this is an exaggeration to emphasise the conflict of