The Battle
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In the poem “The battle”, the speaker describes his experience in a battle in World War II. As the speaker give details on his experiences, he also explains the dehumanizing effects of war on humans and the transition from a human to a machine through metaphors and figurative language.
The poem starts with the speaker and his company walking through a forest. As they are walking they hear sounds of a near by fight. “Some where up ahead the guns thudded.” During the walk, a red sun raises and the night is illumined with a red glow and the speaker gives the sun a metaphor to a cut throat in the battle that is near his location and the death of the people during that battle. “Like the circle of a throat the night on every side was turning red.”
The speaker and his company stops and starts to build fox holes in their current positions. “They halted and they dug.” When they are done digging they just stood in their foxholes and began to freeze and their humanity starting to fade.
At dawn a series of bombings started. Shootings began and lasted for days. The snow was black from the bombings and gunpowder. “the snow was black” The dead bodies were left there and stiffened in their bloody coats. “The corpse stiffened in their scarlet hoods.”
After the battle the speaker could recall the conditions the soldiers where in. They were worn out and tired by the battle. The soldiers where thin and frail like they are wasted and have nothing left. The only thing left with life was the cigarette that was burning.
The battle left the soldiers with no life afterwards. They looked and felt different afterwards. With their humanity taken away, the only thing that remains is a killing machine. In war a machine rather then a man is required.