Beach Burial

Beach Burial

Beach Burial
by Kenneth Slessor

Subject Matter:

The main subject of the poem which tells the reader about the soldier floating around the ocean from death in the war. The soldiers wash up on the beaches, dead, and without any identification to name or know who they are. The poem isn’t I believe an anti-war poem but instead, implants vivid imagery of the dead soldiers finding their final resting place, on the El Alamein.

Purpose or Motive:

Kenneth Slessor’s motivation for creating the poem was to create a comment about humanity, about how we as humans, just go to meaningless battles to only die and finish at a place anyway. Slessor’s words in this poem almost give a dehumanisation feeling to the way we conduct war. He says it almost like we are throwing our life away for no good reason.

Type:

The poem is thought of as an elegy as the dead soldiers on the Arabian Gulf near El Alamein fought in World War II in the Middle East and we, as readers, receive a passionate expression of grief or sorrow.

Themes:

The poem decries the tragic, wanton waste of life. In war soldiers become part of a machine and lose their identity. Rather than enlist on the front of war against each other, we should enlist on a common front against the real enemies of humanity:  disease, famine, and environmental catastrophes. Slessor lauds the compassionate action of those who find time to bury the unidentified fatalities with some dignity.

Form:

Beach Burial has a descriptive form, this is as Beach Burial gives a very in-depth description about what happens and what the scenery looks like.

Rhythm:

The recreation of the rocking waves of the ocean in “swaying and wandering”, and later the echoes of treading on the sand are conveyed by the meter.

Onomatopoeia:

Some examples of Onomatopoeia in the poem Beach Burial is, “sob and clubbing of the gunfire” (a muffled distant sound) — a news reporter’s distant impression - away from the...