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What is an analysis of the poem "The Target" by Ivor Gurney, including the poetic techniques utilized?

In this poem by English poet Ivor Gurney, a soldier reflects on having shot an enemy soldier to death. The speaker struggles with guilt: he quotes someone saying "couldn't be helped"; he states no one can blame him for shooting the enemy because otherwise he himself would have died; he muses that his victim may have been an only son; and he mentions the lack of guidance from God on the issue. He imagines himself being shot to death in battle and in Heaven finding the man he shot in order to apologize. Finally, in the last stanza, he summarizes his tangled emotions and concludes that the war "is a bloody mess indeed."


The poem uses enjambment and caesura to break up what otherwise would become a sing-songy iambic rhythm. Lines that carry over to the next line (enjambment) are 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 11 and 13. Caesura (a hard stop in the middle of a line) occurs in lines 2, 7, and 17. Examples of alliteration include "For worst is worst, and worry's done," "first I'll find," and "Here's my job. / A man might rave." Both assonance and consonance occur in this phrase: "might be best / To die, and set her fears at rest."


Line 18 uses polysyndeton (repetition of conjunctions in a series): "A man might rave, or shout, or sob." The poet uses a metaphor when he says "all's a tangle," comparing his conflicting emotions to a web or a tangled string. The line "This is a bloody mess indeed" contains a pun; the war certainly created a literal bloody mess, but in colloquial usage in England, a "bloody mess" is a cursed state of confusion. Finally, the poet uses simple diction and syntax to ironically express very serious and deep emotions.

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