In comparison to this, “Recruiting” shows what the soldiers lives were really like through the type of language and tone that it uses. For example in “Recruiting” it expresses sympathy, “More poor devils like yourselves”. This illustrates that the soldiers are battling in hell and therefore they are the devils. The sympathetic tone comes from the flow of the word more to poor which gives a slight emphasis on both of these word, representing more soldiers going out to war.
“The Bohemians” consists of 1 stanza, an irregular rhyme scheme but a fairly regular rhythm. The impact of this is somewhat confusing which is what the image in the readers head is like. The structure of one stanza may give the impression of one big battle, the irregular rhyme could represent the chaotic atmosphere of the battle and the fairly regular rhythm represents the soldiers marching towards the battle field. The impact of all of this is quite great, as mentioned before it is quite quick and so a bit confusing which is an image of the battle.
“Recruiting” on the other hand is quite long with 11 stanzas, a regular rhythm and rhyme scheme. This gives the image of maybe a train taking soldiers to war or the soldiers marching to war.
The most important thing to look at in both of the poems is the imagery used as I am looking at the realistic view and image of what the soldiers lives were really like. “The Bohemians” creates quite a dark almost evil view of war which reflects well on what the soldiers lives were really like as it was a bit like hell. References in the poem to hell and evil consist of things such as, “like evil for quickness”, “the ghost of notions” and “as to fear candles”. These all show references in one way or another and create an image of a dark eerie place where fear exists wherever you go. Another image strongly crated is the 2 sides of the same army, the ‘ordinary’ soldiers who do as they are told and dress smart, and then the Bohemians who don’t do anything without a warning, “without army cautions” which creates the image of naughty people casing trouble for the other soldiers. The fashion statements are used to compare the Bohemians with the ‘ordinary’ people; the mention of clean buttons, polished buckles, hair long and putties comfortable suggests that there are 2 totally different sides. This is because the Bohemians went against what they had to do and wore their putties loosely and their hair long which both were not allowed in the army.
“Recruiting” also uses a lot of imagery. Towards the beginning of the poem it mentions “stuck the poster” which is creating an image of propaganda meaning that more people are needed for the war. If this was looked into a bit deeper then it could be interpreted that they are loosing the war of running out of soldiers to fight because of their deaths but because it is propaganda it is biased and bends the truth, a lot. Throughout the poem there is a sympathetic tone which is occasionally twined in with the image of Hell, this is similar to “The Bohemians” which therefore is a strong argument and comparison to what the soldier’s lives were really like, “more poor devils like yourselves,” again as mentioned previously this creates the image of hell and this image of hell and death creates a strong impact upon the reader.
Overall I can conclude that “The Bohemians” and “Recruiting” both show what the soldiers lives were really like by using the image of hell and death to put across to the reader the reality of war. The indications of hell are quite obvious but they match well with the structures with things being slightly irregular, so deaths occur meaning that the soldier numbers are down so that they recruit and get more people to fight. The overall image created from both of the poems is that you are recruited, you go on a train to war, then you fight and become either a ‘good’ person or a Bohemian and the you eventually die and so they need to recruit again.
Kevin Reeves
English Essay
Mr Beasley
