Remote Learning Week 3 Assignment

AMERICAN LITERATURE CONTENT: (3 parts, 1 hour)

Make sure you have looked at the Modernism PPT first (in the week 3 Module). Then start this
work.

Part 1: Read the introductory information and poem below.

“The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” is from Randall Jarrell’s (1914-1965) first book,
Little Friend, Little Friend, published in 1945. The poem was inspired by his service in
the war and is perhaps his most famous poem. Jarrell provided this explanatory note:

A ball turret was a Plexiglass sphere set into the belly of a B-17 or B-24, and inhabited by two .50 caliber
machine guns and one man, a short small man. When this gunner tracked with his machine guns a
fighter attacking his bomber from below, he revolved with the turret; hunched upside down in his little
sphere[...] The fighters which attacked him were armed with cannon, firing explosive shells. The hose
mentioned at the end was a steam hose.

From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,

And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak* and the nightmare fighters**.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

*Flak: anti-aircraft guns fired shells known as flak

**Fighters: enemy fighter planes

Part 2: You may collaborate with up to three other people in any English 11AP class period to
answer these questions. If you collaborate, you must list the people with whom you worked. If
you worked alone, tell me that you did so.

I collaborated with: (insert names of up to three other classmates here)

I worked alone.

Please use the final slide in the Modernism Overview 11AP PPT! It is super helpful!

1) Look at words like “mother”, “hunched”, “belly”, “wet”, “loosed”, “dream of

life”, “woke”, and “washed me out”. All of these words seem to deal with what?
Why would Jarrell make that choice? (Use the images at the end of the
Modernism PowerPoint!)
 ● These words all seem to deal with pregnancy. Jarrell makes this choice because
the turret on the bottom of the plan seems to resemble a kind of womb with him
being forced to be in a fetal position as if he were a child.
2) What associations do you make with the word “State” (1)? There are a lot of
possibilities here. Explore a few of them.
● When I think of the word state I associate it with the government. And in the
poem, it seems like Jarrell is saying that it is the government that is forcing
people to fight in the war, even though it is very violent.
3) No question here, but read this to help with the next question: looking at the
end of the poem, if we speculate as to what will happen after the soldier is
removed from the ball turret, we can assume the plane will be repaired if possible
and used again. Someone else will occupy the ball turret.
4) What argument does Jarrell make about war? How does he support his claim?
Think about what I wrote above in #3, but also think about the poem as a whole.
● Jarrell’s argument about the war is that it is unnecessary violence that is
perpetuated by the government. In the context of the poem, it sounds like Jarrell
is connecting the State, or government, with the horrors of war because he says
that the gunner went from his “mother’s sleep” which brings to mind images of
safety, and “fell into the State,” before describing the other horrors of war. As for
the part where he is quickly replaced with another gunner, it displays that the
soldiers are not cared about, and that they are replaceable pawns in the grand
scheme of the war.
5) Look at the Modernism Overview 11AP PowerPoint. What could be deemed
experimental about the style and structure of the poem--how does it defy
tradition? How does it challenge our beliefs? What other Modernist traits are
present?
● One way the poem challenges tradition is that it does not mention God at all. In
previous literary movements, God usually plays a central role in many pieces of
literature. In this poem, even when God could have easily been used, he is not
mentioned at all, which displays the shift away from religion and towards society.
This piece also would have challenged society’s belief of war at the time. Initally
society thought that war was some glorious action of fighting for one’s country,
however this piece challenges this notion and illuminates the darker side of war
where people are dying left and right, and the soldiers are pawns.

Part 3: Access the poem “The Death of a Soldier” by Wallace Stevens (1918). It can be
found in the Week 3 Remote Learning Module, after the PowerPoint. Read the poem.

Working alone this time...no collaboration!

First, think about the simile regarding the season of autumn being used in comparison
to the death of a soldier. You do not need to write anything about it, but I want you to
think about it.

Respond to the bolded question below in a paragraph or two. Use adequate detail from
both poems to prove your reading.

“The Death of a Soldier” by Wallace Stevens and “The Death of the Ball-Turret
Gunner” by Randall Jarrell were written during two different time periods, World
War 1 and World War 2, respectively. Still, there are a number of important
similarities between the two poems. Write about them. You can consider things
like content, theme, imagery, tone, mood, style/structure, Modernist features, etc.
Address multiple similarities. Then, overall, what is a similar argument that both
poets would agree on when it comes to war?

One similar aspect to both poems is their bleak and dismal tones regarding war. In the
modernist way, they both reject the romanticization of war in favor of the sad, depressing reality
that war brings. In Steven’s poem, he elucidates that soldiers who die are not given memorials,
and instead they are quickly forgotten. Jarrell shares this idea that soldiers are forgotten when
he describes how the soldier in the turret is washed out with a hose for the next gunner to use.
Both poems illuminate this sad fact of war that individual soldiers are meaningless in the grand
scheme of war, and are easily replaceable. Furthermore, both poems conjure up imagery of
death. Steven’s poem constantly mentions Autumn. He uses Autumn as metonymy for the
descent into death because Autumn is the season preceding winter, where plants die, the days
begin to get shorter, and life overall begins to slow down. Autumn is then compared to war and
how soldiers die, creating imagery of death and despair. Jarrell uses depressing diction to
create similar imagery of death. He uses words such as “black” and “nightmare,” which, when
used to describe the enemy fighters attacking the gunner, creates this imagery of death
because the depressing diction foreshadows the death of the gunner.
The similar argument that both writers make is that war should not be romanticized and
instead war should be known for the bleakness and death that it creates. Not once does either
author use positive diction when describing the war. They do not associate the war with glory or
fighting for one’s country, as many in America did at the beginning of World War I. Their
message to the reader is that war is horrible and should not be taken lightly. They closely
associate war with death and destruction in an effort to change the reader’s preconceptions of
war.

RHETORICAL ANALYSIS PRACTICE: (1 Hour)

If you did not do last week’s assignment, complete parts 1-4 first, on your own. Do not submit
these components to me as part of this week’s assignment. They are key preparation for this
week’s work. If you did complete last week’s assignment, skip down to part 5.
Part 5: Make sure you clicked through the Better Body Paragraphs and SPACE Integration
presentation.

Part 6: Go back to Queen Elizabeth’s coronavirus speech (link in Part 2 above). Choose either
your ideas-driven thesis or device-driven thesis. Copy/paste it here first.

● By making readers feel as if they are not alone and encouraging them to look towards a
better future, the Queen of England is able to support her argument that citizens must
remain calm in spite of the global pandemic.

Then, compose ONE body paragraph underneath your thesis. Use my comments from your
Mark Twain mini-rhetorical analysis to help you. Consider the points I made in the Body
Paragraphs and SPACE presentation and what we saw in the Google Meet session last week
from the student samples. The goal here is for me to see improvement from two weeks ago.
Relax. Breathe. Give me your best.

In Queen Elizabeth’s speech to the people of the United Kingdom and elsewhere, she
uses many rhetorical devices that are meant to uplift listeners and make them feel like they are
not alone in such a depressing and isolated time. First, she begins her speech with a direct
address to the listener, saying “I am speaking to you at what I know is an increasingly
challenging time.” By directly addressing the listener, she makes her speech more personal.
Even if the listener has no other people around them due to isolation, they can know that their
queen is with them, and that she is supporting them at all times. Furthermore, the queen
addresses the current situation, and assures the reader that their struggles are valid during this
pandemic, and that their concerns are being heard and felt, even if only by the queen.
Moreover, throughout the queen’s speech she consistently uses second person pronouns of
“us” and “we.” Making this choice to use second person pronouns causes the listener to feel as
though they are a part of a group, that they are connected to society, and reassures the listener
that their leader is with them, along with the rest of society. Additionally, the queen makes use
of an anecdote of when she was a child and broadcasted a message to other children who had
been evacuated from their homes and separated from their families in 1940. She compares this
time to the current situation when many people are unable to see loved ones and are thus
physically isolated from society. However, the queen comforts the listener by telling them that
the separation is necessary and right. By accepting the separation because it is right, it makes
people feel less lonely and more optimistic bc they know that the world is heading in the right
direction in order to overcome the disease, so that one day they can see loved ones again.
Using all of these choices in tandem allows for the queen to support her message to the
populace that they must remain calm. By showing the listener that, while they may physically be
alone, they have a whole country behind them that is supporting them through this pandemic.
By displaying the support that all citizens of the United Kingdom, and extending, the support that
the queen is offering everyone across the globe, the listener is more likely to be able to remain
calm during the pandemic.

Part 7: Add any questions or concerns you have about the information in this rhetorical analysis
section to the Week 3 Discussion Board, located on our class’ Canvas page. (optional)