An Analysis of the Theme of War in Green Beret by Ho Thien and Vitai Lampada by Henry Newbolt Essay

What really is war you may ask? Is it "an armed, prolonged conflictbetween nations"(Wikipedia.org), or is it all about pride, rallying on yourtroops, and keeping strong? The poets Ho Thien and Henry Newbolt, whosepoems Green Beret and Vitai Lampada go beyond the obvious shooting andkilling of war and take a look at what war really is, using poeticstructure, theme and tone to successfully describe war. The poets asks thereader wether war is a destructive force that rips apart families andfriends, or wether it is a way of showing bravery and a chance to cheer ontroops from your homeland. Firstly I would like to discuss how the poems physically look and arestructured, and perhaps why they are laid out this way. If you take a lookat Green Beret by Ho Thien, you will see that there are three distinctStanzas the intro, the main body, and the sort of "concluding" or "ending"stanza of the poem. The first stanza acts as an introductory stanza, as itdescribes the setting of the poem and also introduces all the characters.It is also here in the first paragraph that we assume that the poet of thepoem Green Beret is a person who is looking down at what is happening. Themain body(second stanza) is where the action takes place in this poem. Itis where the boy is described as a "Hurt animal", a metaphor successfullyused to portray the boys innocence, while the Green Beret is standing upwith the boy "Crouching at his knees". The poet tells how the Green Beretis looking upon the boy, who is kneeling down, and this is a good use oflevels to show the power of the Green Beret over the boy. Last of all isthe concluding stanza, where Ho Thien has successfully placed a twist inthe storyline, and revealed that the boy knew all about the Vietcongsoldiers but sacrificed his father's life in order to keep...

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