Monday 27 July 2015

Formalist Analysis of Naming the Parts

"Naming the Parts" by Henry Reed in a formalistic view is a poem that fire backs war. With regards to the 2nd speaker who cleary indulges informally to the lecture of becoming a soldier, he is off to some search for his real nature which is not becoming one.

In every naming of the lecturer to the rifle's part, the young recruit ends up imagining and relating them to the things around as if he were finding and appreciating the beauty in life while it lasts. The poems depicts a clear contrasts with the instructions being given about the rifle with the human values of beauty, love, and freedom, and personal fulfillment as symbolized by the surrounding or by memories.

The senselessness of war is but caught up in a huge impersonal mechanism which is powerless to escape. Yes, war is explored in the piece to denote the destruction of bounty of earth. And not only that, other aspect of life is also conveyed in the discourse of the poem, especially about the beauty of lovemaking. It points out about the indictment against human beings for considering war not love, within the family of man (Palm 1998). The poem ends where reality - lecture of the naming of rifle's parts - comes back and where stopping the war is off.

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