The Soldier by Rupert Brooke. How does Brooke use his poem to persuade men to join the army?

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 “How does Brooke use his poem to persuade men to join the army?”

The Soldier is a poem written by Rupert Brooke which was meant to persuade men to join the army in the First World War. To do this, Brooke had to use many different techniques.

        The first technique Brooke uses is personification. This meant that he made nouns have human characteristics. For example, from the sixth line it states, “A body of England’s, breathing English air.” From this we can already see two examples of personification, firstly, the word “body” and, secondly, the word “breathing”. We already know that England cannot literally have a “body” and England definitely cannot “breathe”, so it must be personification. Personification can make something feel more real and the human characteristic, breathing, that Brooke describes makes the reader understand what it must be like since he knows what it is like to breathe.

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        The second technique that is used is simile. From the text we can pick out the line, “dreams happy as her day.” At this point Brooke is past the point of death, yet the poem is still positive and cheerful. There are no depressive or unhappy words and this proves that Brooke is not scared of the prospect of death. The reader might also be influenced by his positive words and may be not so afraid of death.

The poem is also written in the first person which makes the writer seem as if he is talking directly to you. ...

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