Comparing The Poems Body Count And Overload

Through analysing several different poems relating to Jews during the holocaust, several similarities can be found between various poems. These similarities are reflected in the poems Body Count and Overload by Lille Brett. There are similarities between the theme, landscape, persona and structure of each poem.

Similarities can be found in the theme of Body Count and Overload as both carry the theme of disregard of the Jews by the Nazis, even in death. In Body Count, Brett describes lice covering the bodies that appear to be left where the person died. Comparatively, in Overload Brett describes how mass numbers of bodies are collected and burnt. Overload contains simple imagery early in the poem, describing the pits that could fit “two thousands

Both poems are set in concentration camps and both describe what happens to the dead in the camps. Both poems also have a tone of disbelief associated with them but the disbelief in each poem is related to different things. In Overload the disbelief is related to the amount of room the Nazis allocate to disposing the dead, whereas in Body Count the disbelief is about the amount of lice on the bodies. In Body Count the disbelief can be observed in the lines “their movements moved the dead, eyelids flickered, toes twitched, sometimes a whole leg shifted.” The repetition of the idea that the number of lice make it seem the dead are moving demonstrates the voice in the poem is trying to reassure themselves what they are seeing is real, meaning they are in disbelief in what they are seeing. Contrastingly, in Overload the disbelief is present through the duration of the poem. It is important to note that in the title the poet is describing a situation where there is too many of something, which is found later in the poem there is an overload of dead. Early in the poem the poet uses simple imagery to describe that the pits could “fit two thousand at a time.” The effect of mentioning a number of dead that the pit can contain presents a better picture of how big the pits actually are. The poem finishes by mentioning “The remnants then filled less than a third of the pit.” This line creates the disbelief as the poet is saying

Neither poem indicates a specific persona other than a prisoner in a concentration camp. Both poems use the word “they” indicating that the persona is not part of the group of people mentioned in the poem. In Body Count “they” refers to the dead whereas in Overload “they” refers to the Nazis. In Overload the persona can’t be one of the Nazis from the context of the word “they.” The poet writes “they found criss-crossed, a fat man, a thin man and a child” to describe “the best burning arrangement.” In these lines “they” refers to the Nazis as they are the ones who found “the best burning arrangement,” meaning the persona can’t be the Nazis otherwise the word “we” would have been used. This only leaves the prisoners point of view in which the poem can be written from. In Body Count the persona can be observed through the lines “Their movements moved the dead, eyelids flickered, toes twitched, sometimes a whole leg shifted.” In these lines a tone of disbelief is present through the repetition of the idea that the amount of lice made it appear the dead were moving. As the Nazis disregarded their prisoners, it can be assumed that the poem is not written from a Nazis point of view as they wouldn’t have noticed these details. The only other people in the camp that could observe these scenes were the prisoners themselves, meaning the poem must be written from their point of view. Both poems don’t show an exact persona