“ Cannon to the right of them”
“ Cannon to the left of them”
“ Cannon in front of them”
As they tried to get through the enemy line a lot of the Light Brigade died, but some of them survived Tennyson calls them all “ the noble six hundred.
The imagery of this poem is very affective. The nightmare of death, the blood going everywhere the massacre all around is almost imaginable due to such lines;
“Plunged in battery smoke
reeled from the sabre stroke
into the jaws of death,
into the mouth of hell.”
In contrast, Green Beret is a narrative poem which is all about a twelve year Vietnamese boy having to make a choice between his father’s life and that of the Vietcong. It is a loosely structured poem divided into three stanzas of varying lengths. The poem is also written in free verse. Green Beret threatens to kill the boy’s father if he does not say where the Vietcong are;
“you’ve got one minute kid” shouted Green Beret.
That is one minute to tell where the Vietcong are or his father gets shot.
The boy does not say a word by the time that was requested by green beret so he ordered the boy’s father to get shot. As the gun shot shatters through the forest the boy crouches down and starts to cry. One mercenary then goes over to Green Beret and says to him
“he didn’t know a damn thing
we killed the old guy for nothing”
At that time the mercenary didn’t know how wrong he was because the boy knew all there was to know about the Vietcong. “The caves, the trails, the hidden places and all the names.”
Green Berets’ use of direct speech and its narrative structure produce a very focused poem. It is direct and hard hitting, unlike Tennyson’s, which is more romantic, honourable view of war.
There are a few similarities and differences throughout both poems one of them is Charge of The Light Brigade and Green Beret are both set in a war. Green Beret is set is the Vietnam War and, Charge is set in the Crimean War.
The boy in Green Beret and the six hundred cavalry in Charge of The Light Brigade were all patriotic. The soldiers in Charge went into war without even questioning their actions.
“Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs not to do and die”
Both examine just how tragic war can be and no matter how many die, war is an awful price to pay.
