Homecoming And Guernica Bruce Dawe

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The manner in which the political voice is represented is vital in creating a complex and thought provoking response in an individual or group. The complexities of a political response can be explored in the poems “Enter Without So Much As Knocking”(1959), “Homecoming”(1968), both by Bruce Dawe, as well as the artwork “Guernica”(1937) by Pablo Picasso. Dawes’s poems express political views that compete with the conventional political views that Australians had in his time, including being against consumerism and against involvement in the Vietnam War. In Guernica, Picasso utilises a range of visual techniques to display his political voice against the Spanish Civil War, and the atrocities of wars in general. Both Dawe and Picasso employ techniques …show more content…

A representation of an individual and events epitomise the extremities to which a composer will shape a situation or event to impose their purpose and shift the audiences opinion alike their own. Homecoming and Guernica can both evoke empathy within the responder, creating a complex response to the political voice being conveyed. Dawe use of the repetition of the word ‘they’re’ in the first stanza dehumanises both the dead soldiers and the collectors of the dead soldiers, which are present within the war scenario set up by the poem. This highlights that war is an unkind and unnatural process., positioning the reader to consider that the tragedy in death on a massive scale and that this is the reality of war. The repetition of the verbs ‘zipping’, ‘tagging’, ‘giving’ and ‘rolling’ emphasise the methodical production line nature of dead soldiers. It suggests that the dead …show more content…

Enter Without So Much As Knocking refers to a persona, not a person. Dawe uses this in order to convey his political views about the impact of consumerism on everyone single person within society. This idea is illustrated in stanza 4, through the use of emotive words. The words ‘Snarled’ ‘incomprehensible’ and ‘monstrous love’ portrays the repulsiveness of consumerism and pop culture. It is contrasted with the “clear night”, which is free from the chaos that consumerism creates. Objecting to consumerism and pop culture is the view of the persona, and therefore Dawe is emphasising that all of society thinks this deep down, including readers. This proves that his political voice can be represented through a unique perspective. Homecoming uses the unique perspective of a dead soldier to convey that the sacrifices that they made were not worthwhile and that war is futile. An extended spider metaphor is used. Within the ‘world wide web of suburbs’ the ‘spider grief swings in his bitter geometry’. The imagery of the web, connected to everyone allows the grief to affect everyone in society. Dawe uses this perspective to represent his political voice of anti-war, approaching his voice in a distinctive, complex

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