Emile Khan
Basing your answer on Extract A and Extract B, you should write a comparison of the ways the writers describe the death of a soldier and say how far you agree with the views that Drummer Hodge is presented in a romantic, idealised way, and that Graves’ German soldier is presented with stark realism.
Extract A is a poem entitled ‘Drummer Hodge’ written by Thomas Hardy before the First World War had begun but shortly after the Boer War that took place between 1899 and 1902. The poem is based on a true story about the death of a local boy during the Boer War. The boy is referred to as ‘Drummer Hodge’ in the poem. Extract B is a poem called ‘A Dead Boche’, this time written after the First World War had started, and after the Somme, said to be the bloodiest battle of the entire war. The poet, Robert Graves had fought in the Somme and his poem reflects on his experiences as a soldier in the First World War. His poem is centred on his discovery of a dead German soldier referred to as a ‘Boche’
‘Drummer Hodge’ describes the thoughts and feelings of the poet on the death of the young boy and his fate thereafter. ‘His homely Northern breast and brain Grow to some southern tree’ Hardy believes that Drummer Hodge will forever be a part of the earth after he dies, showing death to be a release from mortality into an eternal rest. ‘Drummer Hodge’ describes the events taking place after the boy has died, whereas ‘A Dead Boche’ centres on the event of the discovery of a dead soldier and the writers response to the experience. Graves’ poem is directed to the reader in the opening line where he says ‘To you who’d read my songs of War and only heard of blood and fame, I’ll say (you’ve heard it said before) “War’s Hell!”’. Graves is saying to the reader that war is not as glorious as his songs may have put it to be, and that there is more to war than blood and fame. He goes on to say he has discovered a cure for those who crave blood and death, and that is the sight of a dead German soldier. ‘With clothes and face a sodden green, big bellied, spectacled, crop haired, dribbling black blood from nose and beard’. Graves’ creates a diabolic image of this dead soldier, upon sight of which he apparently lost his appetite for killing the enemy and his ‘lust for blood’ was cured. Graves describes the death if this German soldier with a certain repugnance ‘In a great mess of things unclean, sat a dead Boche; he scowled and stunk’. His style is similar to Wilfred Owen, when he describes the death of a soldier in his poem ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’. Owen also uses graphic images to convey his feelings to the reader, and describes the physical features of the dying soldier.
