Preview

Bruce Dawe Homecoming Essay

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
745 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Bruce Dawe Homecoming Essay
‘Homecoming’ by Bruce Dawe, is a protest poem written in free verse, which portrays the futility of war in a confronting tone. This poem represents the author’s negative view towards Australia’s involvement in the dehumanizing event. Bruce Dawe creates meaning through the use of language techniques, which metaphorically allow him to speak on behalf of the mute, dead soldiers.

The title ‘Homecoming’ is used to contrast the traditional association of the word, with the shocking reality of war. In this instance, the title operates ironically, since the “homecoming” described is related to death and mourning. Dawe opens the poem with a monotonous tone, as displayed throughout the line: ‘they’re picking them up, those they can find”. The sombre nature of this line, expresses how war has stripped the soldiers of their identity.

The
…show more content…
This poem strongly represents my own perspective of protest, as I naturally agree and appreciate the messages conveyed throughout. This image truly stimulated an emotional response, which made me feel a strong sense of pity for the fallen soldiers.

Over time, War has become a mournful and avoided topic, which must be resolved. ‘Peace’ by Pawel Kuczynski is a satirical image, which addresses this particular issue in a diplomatic manner. This visual piece has a dull tone, which protests against the sensitive topic and enables us to recognize that our decisions can also instigate the occurrence of war.

The significance of peace is conveyed through the way in which the young, innocent boy is intensely gazing and making a connection with his toy dove. The visual imagery and chosen colours help to evoke emotions such as pity and empathy. The darker colours are more intense on the outskirts, whilst the lighting and bright burnt orange colour in the middle gives the image a warm feeling, suggesting a sense of

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Similarly, Bruce Dawe’s Homecoming emphasises on the ruthless and destructive power of politics during the Vietnam war. Dawe’s monotonous and mournful tone throughout the poem reflects his emotions towards warfare as it lacked historical sense and ultimately futile. Witnessing the Vietnam war first hand as a pilot Dawe’s uses the alliteration “All day, day after day” to create vivid imagery of the endless unidentified soldiers which are coming in. Allowing responders to comprehend the mass destruction and ruthless influence politics has over the individual to sacrifice life. Furthermore, Dawe dedicates three lines to the anaphora or “they’re” and repetition “them”, depicting a machine-like process of collecting bodies revealing the ghastly…

    • 219 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Bruce Dawe has used a variety of literary devices to represent specific marginalised groups in ways that challenge their reader’s perceptions. Two of his poems; ‘Homecoming’ and ‘Weapons Training’ are key and transparent examples of literary devices being utilised to represent specific marginalised groups. Both of these poems were set during the 1950’s, with Vietnam being written to represent soldiers pre-war and homecoming to represent soldiers returning to Australia. During this time period, the Australian nation lived via a very patriarchal manner, and had the utmost respect and admiration of their soldiers that fought during the world wars. However, it has been noted in Australian history that there was very little to no compassion given towards the returning soldiers from Vietnam; Homecoming is an attack at society for their reverence and respect-or lack of. This represents the marginalised soldiers from the Vietnam War, for the War Veterans from WW1 and WW2 had always traditionally returned home to a hero’s welcome, greeted at the airway and society’s full support to the brave soldiers who had risked and possibly given their lives for the country. Weapons Training is another war poem, but this time targets young soldiers pre-war on what can be assumed as a final addressing before taking into the ranks, this poem however various from the previous, the soldiers would have gone into the War with the expectation of being given thanks and praise for their bravery, instead they were barked at, abused and insulted. Dawe has represented both of the marginalised soldiers in both of the respective poems through his use of literary devices which can all fall under the brackets of a) Imagery and b) language, integrating into some finer details.…

    • 2124 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    HOMECOMING- Bruce Dawe

    • 329 Words
    • 1 Page

    Bruce Dawe's "Homecoming" is a deeply moving poem, which follows the long journey home for the corpses of dead soldiers. The Vietnam war inspired Dawe to write this poem but it can easily be applied to any war. The message is the same - war kills and wastes lives.…

    • 329 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    During the sixties, in the poem Homecoming, Bruce Dawe expressed a rather solemn, empty and somehow tranquil view of the impact the Vietnam War had on society. He writes in such a way that those who could not fathom or recognise the devastation it brought may now have the chance to comprehend it.…

    • 678 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the middle of the poem, the author describes the constant reminders the speaker has of the war and the lingering effects it has using allusion, symbolism, and imagery.…

    • 634 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The themes of these two poems relate to the effects war has on soldiers, whether they are friendly or enemy. “Whether as enemies they fought, or fought with us, or neither; the sand joins them together.” This quote from “Beach burial” shows how pointless war is, and how whether they fight with or against each other, they are equal. “Homecoming” broadcasts this idea through the entire poem, using a wide range of poetic techniques as a backbone.…

    • 449 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Through dehumanising and depersonalising the soldiers in his poem ‘Homecoming’ Dawe has established a con-tem-pla-tive tone which has encouraged his readers to reassess their lives and life itself. The use of the repetiition of the word “them” aswell as the employment of emotive phrases such as “frozen sunset” and “desert empitness” all help the creation of the tone of the poem. By repeating the collective personal pronoun “them” dawe has established a disconection between how the reader perceives everyday man and the soliders in the poem, evoking thought in his readers about there lives and life in general. This challanging of the readers preconcevied ideas about life is also helped by the emotive phrases that assist in creating tone aswell as expanding ideas in the poem.…

    • 640 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Homecoming by Bruce Dawe

    • 548 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Vietnam War was the “unpopular” war and was intensely criticized by the Australian people for the reasons stated in the poem, Homecoming, by Bruce Dawe. In the poem “Homecoming” by Bruce Dawe, Dawe identifies his personal concerns of the Vietnam War and then presents them through the use of poetic techniques. It is clear to us that Dawe’s foremost concerns are that of the number of dead, the lack of respect and the dehumanisation of the dead, and the careless attitude of the Government towards the War.…

    • 548 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The universal appeal of Bruce Dawe's poems lie in the poet's passion in speaking for those who have no means of speaking. In "The Wholly Innocent" Dawe challenges his readers through a wilful determination to terminate the pregnancy of a healthy foetus. And in Homecoming Dawe questions the validity of war as he speaks of the untimely death of several adolescent boys who are brought home as dead soldiers. Through the use of persona in a dramatic monologue, vivid imagery, onomatopoeia, deliberate repetition and other poetic techniques Dawe reaches the moral conscience of his readers to the wrongness of terminating life prematurely whatever the reason for it may be.…

    • 1213 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Homecoming by Bruce Dawe illustrates and recounts the tragedies of the Vietnam War in an even-tempered, but negative tone. Dawe establishes the universal theme of senseless life loss in war throughout the poem. The last and finals line of the poem produces an idea of a paradox. “They’re bringing them home now, too late,” because the ultimate chance to save their lives has past and gone. Anyhow, it is also “too early” in the sense as all the soldiers at war are too young, leaving an unfulfilled life behind them. Sadly, these soldiers will never receive the true recognition and acknowledgement for their efforts that would have been given at the end of the war purely because of the fact of the staggering number of soldiers dying in war senselessly. With the aid of the poetic technique of paradox, Bruce Dawe make a final and lasting attempt at clarifying…

    • 514 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    10 Mary Street

    • 322 Words
    • 2 Pages

    * In some ways, the poem becomes representational of the post-war Australian immigrant experience – these post-war families kept their memories of their ‘pre-war Europe alive’ through their words, speech and cultural customs. They are then to adapt and adjust to their adoptive Australian home.…

    • 322 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Bruce Dawe's Homecoming

    • 736 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Many of Bruce Dawe’s poems have a heavy message and a bleak meaning relating to society’s weaknesses and downfalls. In his free verse poem “Homecoming” Dawe promotes his ideas, attitudes and values about the Vietnam war to represent his negative perspective of war as a whole. This is evident through Dawes representation of war as a dehumanising conflict in where soldiers are given a lack of respect and honour. Dawe masterfully utilizes imagery, sound devices and irony to also convey his perspective about war.…

    • 736 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wilfred Owen

    • 676 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Wilfred Owen depicts in his poem “disabled” that war is a home for the death of young soldiers.…

    • 676 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    An Analysis of 'Homecoming'In twenty-five lines of dramatic and saddening poetry, Bruce Dawe's "Homecoming" describes to the audience the tragedies of war, the return of the young bodies of the soldiers from the Vietnam War and the lack of respect that was given to these soldiers. Bruce Dawe was born 15 February 1930, he is an Australian poet who began writing poetry at the age of 13. He was influenced by writers such as John Milton and Dylan Thomas. Dawe's poetry revolves around Australian society, politics and culture.…

    • 621 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    anthem for doomed youth

    • 671 Words
    • 3 Pages

    This poem is specifically about the death of a soldier and the notification of that death to his family. This is the reality of war. The word "anthem" has a few different meanings, the one that seems to be the most pertinent to this poem is: an unusually rousing popular song that typifies or is identified with a particular subculture, movement, or point of view. Soldiers of WWI would definitely identify with this poem; no one else (i.e. civilians) could understand everything that they went through during the war. They are fighting a war without knowing the real reasons behind it. They were often poorly equipped. They are the doomed youth of their day.…

    • 671 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics