What is the Real Face on War Based on the Poem 'The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner'

Many stories that were told and written about war are about its destructive and cruel nature. These were all filled with insights on the complexities of emotions that defined the experiences within the battlefields. The aspect of education that was established during WWII, was able to provide the basic literary needs for the younger populace. The war had produced an unexpected boom in the subdiscipline of wartime literature. The majority of the young men who fought in the war, had received basic education prior to entering the army, which enabled the use literacy.

This contributed in producing the many literary works about war. These works mainly focused on the soldier’s point of view of the war, but it was only seen as stories. What these stories conveyed, was not put into more examination as the society mostly cared for its purpose to be conducted in other innovations after the war.

War Literature and Its Evolution

The texts provided to the reader are written by the actual soldier so they give a better insight in understanding post-war society.

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Randall is an example of a poet whose writings originate from his experience in the Air Force, where he showed the grim highlights of the wastefulness of war. Many of his works, including “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner”, tell a tale of something that is hard to understand, such as turning the horrors of the battlefields into a narrative. As a modernist poet, his poems countered the popular representations of war, whose purpose was to be seen in the public in the image of the noble soldier.

It is stressing the horrific and traumatic experiences from the lives of those young and innocent men. In Randall Jarell’s poem, “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner”, it describes the death of a gunner on a World War II American bomber aircraft. The overall message of the poem is an anti-war sentiment. It goes against the traditional wartime literature idea of the glorified soldier. It deglamorizes the war and tells it like this: it is grittier in tone, it does not shy away from portraying war as violent, immoral and corrupted, showing what soldiers suffer from the effects of war, emphasizing that death should not be glorified. As it deals with the complexities of being a soldier and the conflicts involving realities of being one, it draws on the attention to sentiment as emotions (PTSD).

To understand what contrasts traditional war literature to that in the modern literature, it is the ability to show that humans are capable of breaking away from the traditional social system. Within the traditional spectrum of war literature, a propaganda is used by a nation to promote its interests and its war efforts. It functions as a way to spread enthusiasm or patriotism and to get the public to be on the same wavelength in regard to how a country is conducting itself around the world with its ideas on military expansion. The author usually writes about war heroes, or men who died for their country performing a courageous act being represented as the archetypal characteristic. Their main goal is to show a glorified vision of war, meant to inspire people to be more patriotic (to get young men to enlist). As well as to serve their country and to prove themselves as heroes by becoming soldiers. Such storytelling portrays, death as a high achievement, a sort of heroic glory. Because dying for your country is seen as a noble act or something honourable, this contrasts to what is said by modernists writers in their writings. Giving a point that it does not show a glorified vision of a soldier. The writer puts forward a fact that there is no humour or sweetness in dying, it is just death. It should not be glamourized or glorified because it is an awful and horrifying thing.

The function of writing and talking about the past, is seen as a way to heal from its horrific trauma. Traditionally, war poems describe death with the sense of honor and glory that soldiers are taught they can win in battle. Many old present heroism, where death is in harmony to a soldier’s personal achievement. The struggles of fighting in the war is fulfilled by death itself. As for Randall, war poetry deals with death as a way to describe the inner emotions of a warrior’s noble ideals coming to an end and it essentially does not mean anything but death and nothing else.

Often times war is discoursed in the public eye as sort of glorifying and disregarding what was actually is. A study that is essential in understanding war literature is the literary work of Marshall McLuhan. It helped to recognize that media was “any tool/technology that extends the human body or senses” (McLuhan). It is able to explain literature as a tool in understanding war as its tales and dramatic storytelling extends the individual to see the world in a different lens. For example, the language in literary works of poets are often in metaphor and other figures of speech as it aims to be powerfully persuasive in its intent. For the whole purpose of the poet is to make the reader think—to think critically and also to imagine. The reader is given basic language that makes them think.

The way that an anti-war writer portrays death in their work, is through mystery and fear that catches the reader’s attention. Through the creation of terror and the use of dark themes in the text. It is like realism, because literature here, serves as a reflection of reality as it is able to provide insight, knowledge or wisdom, provoking the emotions of the individual who partakes it entirely. Brooke Horvath’s deconstruction of “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” is an essential analysis in elevation the representative example. It examines a series of binaries “the home/the State, life/death, peace/war, human dignity/dehumanization, cozy dreaming/freezing nightmare” . Through closer examination, they reveal the characterization of the gunner, the conflicted perspectives on warfare, such as the positive functions of war (to advance as a society or preserve freedom), against the negative side of war, like what its effects does to those who are fighting for such advancements. The modernist writer like Randall, suggests that the “peacetime stage” of the airmen in battle is just as “horrific, deadening and dehumanizing” (Sarnowski, 7) as that of the tales written about the horrors of war. It is helpful for in wartime literature, the attempt to forward an antiwar message will enable a “liberating, livening and even humanizing” (Sarnowski, 7) experience to its audience. The author reveals that literature is used to dehumanize but to also humanize, for the means of seeing through surface of the poem, the language, and tone of a text that is entirely up to its reader to understand the way they want to.

The emotions that soldiers felt in the war certainly varied. Yet the most prominent disadvantage of war to the warrior is the lasting mental health problems. Such as the emotions of anger, confusion, fear and love, PTSD can be argued, as the most important one the list, for it embodies all the other emotions felt after the experience. The way in which these emotions were expressed and how the individual had to control them may be examined from the fractions and fragments of resources that have been raised from the own knowledge of the soldier himself. The military also recognizes that war trauma is largely connected to how a soldier would want to be treated, or they would even choose to be treated. Through the examinations of wartime literature, an individual is able to cultivate an understanding for war, to even understand and sympathize to those who were affected, like how the military is trying to find many ways in treating the disorder that majority of its soldiers are facing. The modernist poet’s release of intense emotion enables its reader to connect in a deep emotional state and this creates a different perspective on how the person may see the world

In further analysis on the functions of war literature, a text from Marshall McLuhan, “War and Peace in the Global Village”, outlines all social changes such as warfare, are caused by introducing new technologies, whose insights probe a prediction of a word without centres of boundaries. When a world or a system lacks stability in organizing its establishments, it can create chaos. The disorder brought about challenges within how the individual’s thought of problems. It can be argued that wartime literature did tell horrific stories during combat that shaped a new perspective of the world. Warfare had produced a disorder in the functions of everyday life during the war, but literature had provided a sense of enlightenment in a time where devastation had taken over many vulnerable individuals. It is important to note that this text is able to give an important reference to wartime literature as it mediates on the acceleration of innovations leading to identity loss during and after the war.

Many stories are told and written about war but most of them usually portray war in aspects that tend to “humanize” it. It is important to value what anti-war writers are trying to say because it provides an insight to what the people who fought it were feeling. The poem is written in an attitude that is calm and negative. Randall peacefully tells the reader about the injustices of war, where it awakens the soul of an individual to concern about the pity of war. In the poem Randall contrasts death from a sense of honour of a soldier in war to death in harmony with the soldier’s personal achievement. Randall’s “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” is his most widely known work. Because it had related to the people and events of World War II. The poem is unique, indeed, the grim tone of this poem places it firmly in the Modernist movement of literature. It addresses alienating effects revealed in the characterization of the individual and its placement in an impersonal society. Also, many of the writings focused on the horrifying experiences, taken from first-hand entries of the individuals who were in battle. The experiences of the soldier did impact what they had felt and saw in world around them.

Literature serves as a reflection of reality as it is able to provide insight, knowledge and wisdom. The literary discipline of wartime literature helps us understand the horrors of the battlefields and how they have come to be narratives entailed with the most inward feelings, words describing the deeply traumatic experiences. Many soldiers have written diary entries that show how scary the war was, but war in itself is destructive and horrifying, yet it is through the production of emotions, that a soldier’s experience would vary. A poet like Randall Jarrell is able to present haunting vision of post-war society. He portrays the war’s relentless horrors in reflection of its grim reality. His poem The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner expresses the life of a soldier through a literary piece. The deconstruction of this poem by Brooke Horvath, examines the five-line poem and how it is manifested with deeper meanings. The author’s use of tone, language and imagery are all based on his own human tragedies, desires, and feelings, are all able to cultivate, inspire, and feed information to its audience. The poem has endless and multi-dimensional use of literary language shapes the perception of war through the lens of the poet and reader. Marshall McLuhan’s definition of media is able to explain literature as an important tool in understanding the complexities of war. Extending its tales and dramatic storytelling to the imagination of the individual, enabling to see the world in a different lens. Further analysis of the works of McLuhan gave light in understanding the devastations felt during World War II. The individual’s sense of identity had slowly vanished as the world around them produced disorder and chaos.