Setting
· Hospital Bed
o “Now, he will spend a few sick years in Institutes, and do what things the rules consider wise, and take whatever pity they may dole.”
- This setting offers the sad reality that is a soldier’s life after war. The effects of shell shock combined with physical disabilities force the soldier to live life through hospitals.
· Scene Before leaving for war
o “He asked to join. He didn’t have to beg; smiling they wrote his lie; aged nineteen years.”
-Youth and immaturity show how the army can use the hero stories and glorified image to persuade teens to join their cause. The fact that the young man smiles through a lie so that he can join the army shows the contradiction between then and how he feels now about life after war.
· Park
o The park scene, which opens the poem, sets the tone for the piece of beginning depressing. The image of a disabled soldier sitting in a wheel chair reflecting upon life while young boys run about enjoying their day shows how badly the soldier desire’s his youth and old days.
o “Now, he will spend a few sick years in Institutes, and do what things the rules consider wise, and take whatever pity they may dole.”
- This setting offers the sad reality that is a soldier’s life after war. The effects of shell shock combined with physical disabilities force the soldier to live life through hospitals.
· Scene Before leaving for war
o “He asked to join. He didn’t have to beg; smiling they wrote his lie; aged nineteen years.”
-Youth and immaturity show how the army can use the hero stories and glorified image to persuade teens to join their cause. The fact that the young man smiles through a lie so that he can join the army shows the contradiction between then and how he feels now about life after war.
· Park
o The park scene, which opens the poem, sets the tone for the piece of beginning depressing. The image of a disabled soldier sitting in a wheel chair reflecting upon life while young boys run about enjoying their day shows how badly the soldier desire’s his youth and old days.