Even though the soldier knew that they would be killed they did not disobey. Even they were suicidal, the orders of their commander were played because otherwise they would be shot as it’s shown in the poem.
‘Not though the soldiers knew,
Someone had blundered,
Theirs not to make,
Theirs not to reason why,
There’s but to do and die’
This extract shows that tin the army as a soldier you must follow every order given however ridiculous it is. Tennyson also celebrates the ideal of unquestioning obedience of the soldiers in the face of death.
Cannon to right of them Cannon to left of them Cannon in front of them
This cacophony of cannon is used to describe the sound of the cannons, which is done by using the harsh ‘c’ of ‘cannon’. Tennyson creates a feeling of exhilaration, of the nobility of warfare with his use of poetic devices, such as rhetorical repetition.
Tennyson creates a vivid impression of the bravery of the soldiers when they reach the gunners with many verbs of action.
'Flash’d all their sabres bare
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there”
But after this stanza they have only reached a line of cannons for they are still being fired upon from three sides
In the final stanza Tennyson creates a sense of the immortality of the soldiers’ bravery with a rhetorical question and commands:
‘When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made! …
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!’
The repetition of ‘the six hundred, at the end of each stanza reminds the reader of the enormous loss of life, but at the end of the poem they have become the ‘Noble six hundred’ and are celebrated as heroes. This honour of going to war and dying in war is also shown in the poem ‘To Lucasta, Going to the Wars’ and ‘The Volunteer’.
The Man He Killed
The Man He Killed is about a man who was in battle and has just killed a man and he is trying to justify his actions.
At the start of the poem we hear a man talking as if he had met this man in an inn he would not have killed him but treated him like a friend and would have had a few drinks with him:
‘Had he and I but met,
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet’
But since he was a member of infantry on the side of his so called enemy, this was not the case. When he killed him they were all lined up face to face. They both shot at each other and by chance he managed to shoot the other guy and so he did not get shot.
‘But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place’
‘I shot him dead because-‘ Here there is a pause because the man had to think why he actually did what he did.
‘Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That’s clear enough; although’
The man in the poem is trying to reassure himself that he was right in his killing of the man by saying that the man was his foe but the argument that he raises does not sound very convincing. The man also has second thoughts about his reason due to the ‘although’ at the end of the stanza.
In the next stanza he starts to think about the man he killed and thought that he might have enlisted just like he did and that he might have joined up because he was out of work and he had sold his traps for he may have been a hunter.
‘He thought he’d ‘list ,perhaps,
Off hand like – just as I –
Was out of work – had sold his traps –
No other reason why.’
At the of the poem the man finds out that war is a very strange thing for if he had met the man in a bar he would have drank with him and bought him a beer but in warfare he kills him.
‘Yes quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fello down
You’d treat if met where any bar is,
Or Help to half-a-crown.’
This extract shows you how the man feel about war for he thinks that war is rather peculiar for in war you shoot the man shooting at you, however if you got to know them you could make friends with them.
After Blenheim
‘After Blenheim’ is about an Old Farmer called Old Kasper who was a little child during the bloody battle of Blenheim. He is telling his grandchildren about the ‘great victory’ at Blenheim.
The scene of the poem is in a field where old Kasper is sitting in front of his cottage in the sun during an idyllic time of day when his grandson finds something large and round. When the grandson brings the large round object to his grandfather Old Kasper tells him in a sympathetic way that it was somebody’s skull who had fallen in the great victory.
‘Tis some poor fellow’s skull.’ Said he,
Who fell in the great victory.’
The way Old Kasper says ‘Who fell in the great victory,’ is ironic due to many men losing their lives in this battle yet it is still proclaimed as a great victory.’ Is ironic due to the many men losing their lives yet still it is called ‘the great victory.’