War Trauma Poem Analysis

The second activity of this three-class unit revolves around the aftermath of war, mainly the consequences that it can have on soldiers. For this activity, the students will work on a poem written during the Vietnam War by Curt Bennet called “War Trauma.” They will have to look for and explain the different figures of speech found in the poem. The aim of this activity in terms of poetry is for the students to understand and recognize figures of speech in a poem. As a pre-activity, I would first ask the students what they know about the Vietnam war and write that information in the board, and then add any missing or interesting information, such as the origins of the war (Trueman states that the United-States’ fear of communism caused the conflict),

After some time, I would have the students pair up and compare the different elements that they have found. They should come to a consensus about the meanings of the figures of speech in the context of the poem and write down a short explanation for each one they find. Then, as a follow-up, we would look at the poem line by line as a whole class and find the different figures of speech that are contained. The students would be invited to share what they have found and I would share my own answers when the students are not able to find a figure of speech. Once again, I would need to stay open to what the students have to say since they may have found figures of speech that I had not seen or have a different meaning than mine for those they found. Afterwards, we would have a whole class discussion about post-traumatic stress disorder, which is something that many soldiers have to deal with when coming back from war. According to Raphael and Middlelton, “these psychological problems may be severe, prolonged, and disabling, and they include intrusive memories, flashbacks, anxiety, numbing of feelings, and irritability” (p.1142) However, this subject is still somewhat taboo in the military world and soldiers often do not to mention such mental symptoms (Gabriel and

It should not be celebrated as a victory, but as something that should never happen again. The figures of speech that are present in the poem are used to emphasize the elements that make up what war is, which are all atrocious. Indeed, the metaphors and personifications contained in the poem compare war to a “fatal flaw” (line 4), a “perversion” (line 5) and the “profoundest disrespect” (line 9), amongst others. In addition, the anaphora of the words “the ultimate” (lines 12, 15-17) is used to show how war only brings the worse in human life (racism, criminality, obscenity and crime against humanity). The euphemism found on line 19 also hints to the aftermath of war for the soldiers, using the expression “troubled man” to refer to soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder. The persona or speaker of this poem is, in my opinion, someone who does not believe in war and does not want to see it happen again. The persona wants the world to learn from their mistakes and bring peace instead of destruction. The implied reader targeted by this poem would be either people who want world peace or those who glorify war by showing them how horrible it really is. The actual reader would be the students reading the poem, and the ideal reader would be people who share the same beliefs (i.e., world peace) or the opposite beliefs. The latter would be