Kamikaze (AQA GCSE English Literature)

Each poetry anthology at GCSE contains 15 poems, and in your exam question you will be given one poem - printed in full - and asked to compare this printed poem to another. As this is a closed-book exam, you will not have access to the second poem, so you will have to know it from memory. Fifteen poems are a lot to revise. However, understanding four things will enable you to produce a top-grade response:

• The meaning of the poem
• The ideas and messages of the poet 
• How the poet conveys these ideas through their methods
• How do these ideas compare and contrast with the ideas of other poets in the anthology

Below is a guide to Beatrice Garland’s poem 'Kamikaze', from the Power and Conflict anthology. It includes:

• Overview: a breakdown of the poem, including its possible meanings and interpretations
• Writer’s Methods: an exploration of the poet’s techniques and methods
• Context: an exploration of the context of the poem, relevant to its themes
• What to Compare it to: ideas about which poems to compare it to in the exam

Overview

In order to answer an essay question on any poem it is vital that you understand what it is about. This section includes:

• The poem in a nutshell
• A ‘translation’ of the poem, section-by-section
• A commentary of each of these sections, outlining Garland’s intention and message

Kamikaze in a nutshell

Kamikaze was written by the poet Beatrice Garland in a bid to explore the reasons why soldiers choose to, or are asked to, die for their country. Garland’s poem Kamikaze presents the perspectives of both the kamikaze pilot and his daughter to show their different ideas about conflict.

Kamikaze breakdown

Lines 1-3

“Her father embarked at sunrise

with a flask of water, a samurai sword

in the cockpit, a shaven head”

Translation

• The poem begins by reporting an event from a daughter’s perspective: a father leaves on a journey
• The speaker mentions a list which details the pilot’s belongings and the ritualistic shaved head of a kamikaze pilot 

Garland’s intention

• Garland begins her poem with a description of the pilot boarding his aeroplane to show the personal perspective of his experience
  • The reference to the ritual a kamikaze pilot undertakes before boarding tells readers the pilot is on a suicide mission for his country

Lines 4-6

“full of powerful incantations

and enough fuel for a one-way

journey into history” 

Translation

• Garland refers again to the ritual: the pilot is repeating patriotic chants (“incantations”)
• The speaker tells the reader that this is a suicide mission which will lead to glory for the pilot, that he will be respected always for his sacrifice

Garland’s intention

• Here, Garland refers to the power behind the chants of honour and glory which the pilot repeats to complete his military duty
• Garland’s speaker lets readers know that this suicide mission is one of patriotism, that he has been called to carry out an important duty

Lines 7-8

“but half way there, she thought,

recounting it later to her children,”

Translation

• The speaker is the pilot’s daughter who is telling the story to her children
• She continues the story of the father, suggesting that something changes “half way there”

Garland’s intention

• Garland alerts readers that this is a story being told by a mother to her children about her own father, showing the perspective of family members during and after conflict
• The break in stanza pauses the story and, with the conjunction “but”, the speaker highlights something changed on the pilot’s journey, that he had doubts about his duties

Lines 9-12

“he must have looked far down

at the little fishing boats

strung out like bunting

on a green-blue translucent sea”

Translation

• Here, the speaker of the story recounts to her children what she imagines about the pilot’s journey: she guesses he looked down on the ocean from his aeroplane  

Garland’s intention

• The lines convey a tone of nostalgia as the pilot leaves his home behind
• Garland explores the pilot’s thoughts and feelings in a bid to understand his experience
  • The speaker suggests the father may have felt emotional, homesick perhaps, as he sees the beautiful ocean

Lines 13-16

“and beneath them, arcing in swathes

like a huge flag waved first one way

then the other in a figure of eight,

the dark shoals of fishes”

Translation

• The speaker describes the scene below: the pilot can see the shadows of fish swimming under the water
• Now the pilot can see a darker shadow of fish beneath the water
• Garland describes the size and magnitude of the shoals of fish with the word “swathes” which means ‘a broad area’

Garland’s intention

• These lines contrast the earlier positive description of the scene
• This description could convey darker thoughts in the pilot’s mind, suggesting he doubts his part in the conflict
• The fish shoals are described as a flag, like a warning to him

Lines 17-20

“flashing silver as their bellies

swivelled towards the sun

and remembered how he

and his brothers waiting on the shore”

Translation

• The speaker describes the fish turning, now silver and bright in the sun
• This reminds him of his childhood, fishing with his brothers

Garland’s intention

• These lines depict the darker thoughts being replaced with brighter memories of the pilot’s childhood
• The fish seem to signal to the pilot as they turn and flash in the sun, suggesting nature reminds him of what is important

Lines 21 - 24

“built cairns of pearl-grey pebbles

to see whose withstood longest

the turbulent inrush of breakers

bringing their father’s boat safe”

Translation

• The speaker tells us the pilot remembers how he built small graves of stone with his brother
• He describes how he and his brother competed to see whose grave withstood the crash of waves as they brought the boat in

Garland’s intention

• The pilot’s memories remind him of family, and of death 
• Here, Garland shows how the pilot remembers small intimate details of his past which help him realise the power of nature and the importance of family

Lines 25-30

“- yes, grandfather’s boat – safe

to the shore, salt-sodden, awash

with cloud-marked mackerel,

black crabs, feathery prawns,

the loose silver of whitebait and once

a tuna, the dark prince, muscular, dangerous.”

Translation

• The speaker begins to list all the fish they would catch fishing together as a family
• The pilot remembers catching a tuna, a strong and powerful fish

Garland’s intention

• The disrupted rhythm here begins a stream of consciousness sensory memory
  • The descriptions convey the vivid memory the pilot has as he looks down on the water where he fished with his family
  • The speaker refers to the dark and powerful tuna, alluding to ideas of strength and power with a metaphor of "dark prince"
    • However, Garland gives this power to nature, not the pilot: this subverts ideas relating to military strength and power

Lines 31-33

“And though he came back

my mother never spoke again

in his presence, nor did she meet his eyes” 

Translation

• The speaker explains that the pilot did return home; he did not complete his mission
• However, his return was not welcomed by the speaker's mother, the pilot’s wife

Garland’s intention

• Garland shows the power of the pilot’s childhood memories and love for his home: he returns, choosing not to die in conflict
• The perspective of the speaker’s mother is unexpected perhaps: she is disgraced by his return and his disobedience towards his duty to his country:
• Garland comments on the culture of honour and patriotism
• She conveys the extreme response of individuals when soldiers defy cultural values

Lines 34-36

“and the neighbours too, they treated him

as though he no longer existed,

only we children still chattered and laughed”

Translation

• The speaker explains that other people responded similarly: the neighbours alienated the pilot
• The children did not understand these ideas, and continued as before

Garland’s intention

• Garland shows how powerful the values of honour and glory are for the pilot’s neighbours, so strong that they ignore and ostracise him
• Garland explores how children respond differently, suggesting patriotism is learned behaviour

Lines 37-40

“till gradually we too learned

to be silent, to live as though

he had never returned, that this

was no longer the father we loved.”

Translation

• The speaker explains that the children were told to ignore their father too
• The lines here depict the way the children were taught to deny him as a father

Garland’s intention

• Garland shows an example of children being taught to mimic the ideas of their elders
• Her poem explores family conflicts as a result of cultural ideals regarding patriotism

Lines 41-42

“And sometimes, she said, he must have wondered

which had been the better way to die.”

Translation

• The speaker ends the poem with her own reflections
• She considers the huge price her father paid for returning home instead of sacrificing his life for his country:
• She considers his life afterwards to be a metaphorical death too

Garland’s intention

• Garland comments on the sacrifice the father had to make whether or not he completed his suicide mission to explore the impact of patriotic values on family
• She ends the poem with a poignant comment which shifts the narration from the external to the internal: the ending suggests unresolved emotions

Although this section is organised into three separate sections - form, structure and language - it is always best to move from what the poet is presenting (the techniques they use; the overall form of the poem; what comes at the beginning, middle and end of a poem) to how and why they have made the choices they have. 

Focusing on the poet’s overarching ideas, rather than individual poetic techniques, will gain you far more marks. Crucially, in the below sections, all analysis is arranged by theme, and includes Garland’s intentions behind her choices in terms of:

• Form
• Structure
• Language

Form

The poem is a seven stanza narration told from a third-person perspective. The daughter recounts the journey of her father, a kamikaze pilot, and the family’s perspective on his ‘dishonourable’ return.

Theme	Evidence	Poet’s intention
The wide-reaching impact of conflict	The story of the pilot’s journey is told from his daughter’s perspective in third person to convey the impact on family members	The poem shows the detached perspective of those left behind: this creates a distance between the daughter and her father to depict the barriers in their relationship and the resulting isolation
	The narration shifts briefly to first person at the end when the daughter describes the response to the father’s decision to come home: “no longer the father we loved”	Garland’s narrative shifts offer different versions of events: the father as he remembers his childhood and the daughter’s - both as a child and as an adult
	The perspective returns to third person to complete the poem: “And sometimes, she said, he must have wondered which had been the better way to die”	The ending conveys the isolation created within the family due to conflict and suggests the daughter’s loss as well as the father’s

Structure

The poem follows a rigid and ordered structure which represents both the rigidity of the family towards the father and the strict discipline of military duty. 

Theme	Evidence	Poet’s intention
Suffering due to conflict	The poem has a rigid structure of six lines per stanza	The structure reflects the idea of order and discipline, linking to the cultural and military values Garland explores in her poem
	However, at times, the poem shifts to free-flowing verse shown via enjambment, to represent the pilot’s thoughts and memories	Garland juxtaposes the controlled voice of the speaker with the reflective tone of the father reminiscing about his childhood
		Garland shows the father as less controlled by ideas of patriotism, disobeying the strict rules of his culture
	The poem ends with the word ‘die’, emphasising the daughter’s powerful reflection: “He must have wondered which was the better way to die”	This highlights his isolation and suffering as a result of his decision to return home instead of sacrificing his life
		The daughter, too, is left without resolution
		Garland alludes to the sacrifice and suffering of the entire family as result of conflict

Language

Garland weaves imagery alluding to the beauty and power of nature alongside images related to conflict, in particular, that of the Japanese kamikaze pilot. This conveys the emotions of the pilot as he battles with his decision to fight for his country or return to it. 

Theme	Evidence	Poet’s intention
Conflict and identity	The poem begins with a list referring to the ritual undertaken by kamikaze pilots: “with a flask of water, a samurai sword in the cockpit, a shaven head”	Garland alludes to the powerful nationalistic messages the pilot received, and perhaps relies upon, to complete his mission, as he chants his “powerful incantantions”
	The speaker compares the boats in the ocean to bunting in a “blue-green translucent sea”, to describe the scene below as a positive one	The simile Garland uses connotes to the pilot’s love for his beautiful homeland and perhaps to the idea of victory and celebration
	Garland contrasts the positive imagery with a description of a dark shoal of fish who seem to alert the pilot to something: the dark “swathes” of fish wave like a flag and flash at the pilot	Garland’s simile here contrasts the positive imagery of before
		Here, her comparison of the fish to a flag suggests the pilot’s thoughts turn darker, and that nature is signalling to him
		Garland illustrates the power of nature and family to reverse the nationalistic ideals the pilot has been taught
Sacrifice	The speaker, indirectly speaking on behalf of the pilot, lists the fish he used to catch with his family when he was young: “cloud-marked mackerel, black crabs, feathery prawns, the loose silver of whitebait”	The sensory nature of the father’s vivid memories evokes sympathy from the reader
		Garland shows that the speaker thinks about her father despite their alienated relationship: this implies a sacrifice made on both their parts

Examiners repeatedly state that context should not be considered as additional factual information: in this case, it is not random biographical information about Beatrice Garland, or historical facts about kamikaze pilots that are unrelated to the ideas in Kamikaze. The best way to understand context is as the ideas and perspectives explored by Garland in Kamikaze which relate to power or conflict. This section has therefore been divided into two relevant themes that Garland explores:

• Loss due to conflict
• Powerlessness due to conflict

Loss due to conflict 

• Garland’s Kamikaze is one of a collection of poems in an anthology which considers, among other themes, family loss due to cultural divides
• In Kamikaze, Garland chose to explore the nationalistic values of Japanese kamikaze pilots and their families, and how this may lead to family conflict
• During World War II, Japan adopted a strategy of attacking enemy targets with suicide bombers known as kamikaze pilots
• Japanese culture is closely connected to honour and bravery above all
• An individual’s dishonourable actions will reflect poorly on their friends and family 
• This poem considers the experience of a kamikaze pilot: a father chooses to return home instead of completing his mission, thus defying social and cultural expectations
• This leads to his isolation as his family turns their back on him
• The poem explores the loss the family suffers through the perspective of his daughter
• Neither the daughter nor her own children have the father in their lives
• Garland explores how the cultural values her family support, that of honour and duty to country above all else, lead to divisions

Powerlessness due to conflict  

• Garland’s poem considers the social pressure placed upon soldiers via the perspective of a father leaving home and contemplating his death:
• By showing the father’s doubts about his military duty, readers see a human side of war, regardless of which side a soldier is on
• Garland’s father is alienated and ignored due to his choice to return: the father is powerless to be with his family again regardless of his decision
• Garland challenges cultural values regarding patriotism by presenting a daughter and her siblings as powerless to defy their mother’s wishes
• They are told to turn their back on their father and they obey
• Garland questions this by presenting the daughter’s unresolved reflections
• She tells her own children about their grandfather in his absence
• She acknowledges that her father was powerless in his situation: “He must have wondered which was the better way to die”

The essay you are required to write in your exam is a comparison of the ideas and themes explored in two of your anthology poems. It is therefore essential that you revise the poems together, in pairs, to understand how each poet presents ideas about power, or conflict, in comparison to other poets in the anthology. Given that Kamikaze explores the ideas of loss due to conflict and powerlessness due to conflict, the following comparisons are the most appropriate:

• Kamikaze and Poppies
• Kamikaze and War Photographer
• Kamikaze and Remains

For each pair of poems, you will find:

• The comparison in a nutshell
• Similarities between the ideas presented in each poem
• Differences between the ideas presented in each poem
• Evidence and analysis of these similarities and differences

Kamikaze and Poppies 

Comparison in a nutshell:

Both Kamikaze and Poppies convey personal and individual loss due to conflict by presenting the perspectives of family members. The poems explore ideas related to bravery and honour, and how these values can lead to a sense of powerlessness for all involved in the conflict.

Similarities:

Topic sentence	Both poems show the effects of loss on family members due to conflict
Evidence and analysis	Kamikaze	Poppies
	Kamikaze shows the perspective of a family member after the war, in this case, a daughter, narrating a story about their father, a Kamikaze pilot	Similarly, in Poppies the poet shows the effect of loss on those left behind by presenting the perspective of a parent grieving their son’s death in war
	In Garland’s poem, the perspective alternates between the father’s evocative memories as he leaves for war, and the daughter’s recounting of responses to his return	Weir uses enjambment (run on lines) to present a parent’s emotional and evocative stream of consciousness: a free-flowing memory about their son’s childhood
	The shift from the personal and emotional pain of the father as he chooses to live rather than die contrasts with the pragmatic retelling of the division of the family on his return	Although, at points, Weir changes the tone with caesurae to break the flow, signifying the parent’s disrupted and emotional break in the voice
	The speaker in Kamikaze uses sensory imagery to describe intimate moments the father remembers about his past as he flies to war	The speaker in Poppies also uses sensory imagery to describe intimate moments of the son’s childhood which the parent misses: “Graze my nose across the tip of your nose”
	The pain of loss is presented in both poems by showing personal memories and perspectives of loved ones involved in a war

Topic sentence	Both poets represent powerlessness of those involved in conflict
Evidence and analysis	Kamikaze	Poppies
	Powerlessness is shown via Kamikaze’s reflective tone which shifts perspectives from third-person (“he must have wondered which had been the better way to die”) to a first-person plural (“the father we loved”) The reflections shift perspective to convey the different ways the family members respond	Powerlessness of a family member is expressed in Poppies through the reflective tone of a dramatic monologue It is delivered by a parent in a direct address to their dead son: “hoping to hear your playground voice”
	It could be argued that both speakers convey the individual’s sense of  powerlessness after conflict as they reflect on their experience of loss
	Garland presents the daughter’s powerlessness through sensory imagery related to sound: “we too learned to be silent”, suggesting the daughter’s broken relationship with her father was not autonomous and without clear resolution	Weir represents the parent’s powerlessness to be with their son again using sensory imagery to end the poem without any resolution: the parent is left listening for their son’s voice on the wind

Differences:

Topic sentence	While both poets suggest that conflict leads to powerlessness, the poems present different attitudes to war
Evidence and analysis	Kamikaze	Poppies
	In Kamikaze, the father doubts his role in war	In Poppies, however, the parent suggests the son was innocent to the realities of war
		The metaphor, “the world overflowing like a treasure chest”, connotes to ideas of war bringing glory and adventure
	The father is convinced by his memories to return home instead of dying for his country	Here, the parent describes their son as “intoxicated” with war, implying he was poisoned with the patriotic ideas associated with it
	The parent experiences loss because he is alienated by his family for refusing to sacrifice himself for his country	Here, however, the parent experiences grief as a result of the son’s enthusiasm for conflict

Kamikaze and War Photographer

Comparison in a nutshell:

This is an effective comparative choice to explore the impact of conflict on those other than soldiers themselves. Both Garland’s Kamikaze and Duffy’s War Photographer present unconventional perspectives and descriptions of the experience of conflict.

Similarities:

Topic sentence	Both poems show that conflict has wide-reaching influence by showing particular individuals affected by it
Evidence and analysis	Kamikaze	War Photographer
	An unconventional experience of conflict is presented through a narration of a daughter telling her children a story about her father, a kamikaze pilot	Similarly, Duffy shows the experience of grief from the perspective of a war photographer developing photographs and remembering what he has seen
	Garland’s poem is structured to represent the father’s personal reflections as he flies over his homeland on his way to a suicide mission	Duffy’s poem represents the photographer’s personal grief through disjointed flashbacks as he remembers those who have suffered in conflict: “running children in a nightmare heat”
	However, Garland shifts perspective: the story is told from the daughter’s perspective as she reflects on her father’s choices and the impact of them	Duffy’s persona feels displaced back at home in “Rural England”. He describes their experience of pain as ordinary in comparison to what he has seen
	The poems both present the effects of conflict on individuals involved with conflict around the world, as well its continuing impact afterwards
	The daughter’s unresolved feelings about her father’s decision are shown at the end of the poem as she acknowledges, “he must have wondered which was the better way to die”	The poem ends with the line “they do not care” suggesting a lack of resolution for the speaker, and continuing suffering due to conflict
	The poems consider the experience of grief as a solitary one; they convey the isolation of the parent and the photographer in their settings
	Both poets wish to raise awareness of the effect of conflict on individual lives beyond the battlefields, at home or at work Therefore, both poems could be considered a social commentary on the wide-reaching negative impact of conflict The memories of each character are not resolved at the end of the poems, suggesting continued suffering for all those involved in the war

 Differences:

Topic sentence	While Garland chooses to show a strong patriotic response to the conflict in her poem Kamikaze, Duffy’s War Photographer presents an impassive and apathetic public
Evidence and analysis	Kamikaze	War Photographer
	Garland shows us a different perspective on patriotism by conveying the father’s love for country and heritage: seeing it below makes him turn away from his military duty	Duffy’s omniscient speaker allows the reader insight into the photographer’s thoughts about the futility of his work and frustration with his peers at home
		He adopts a bitter tone towards his homeland, suggesting they are apathetic and disinterested in conflict:  “The reader’s eyeballs prick with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers.”
	Garland’s persona has strong positive emotions for his homeland and past. However, Duffy’s persona conveys feelings of resignation and detachment from his homeland
	The speaker describes how his family and neighbours strongly oppose his decision, and alienate him for disobeying his patriotic military duties	In contrast, Garland’s speaker takes on a cynical tone, suggesting the photographs of conflict do not evoke emotion at home: “his editor will pick out five or six for Sunday’s supplement”
	She emphasises, with repetition, their extreme response: “as though he no longer existed” and “this was no longer the father we loved”	A detached speaker comments on the lack of interest at home: “stares impassively at where/he earns his living and they do not care”
	Though the reactions of those at home are different, each poem presents lasting isolation for individuals involved in the conflict

Kamikaze and Remains

Comparison in a nutshell:

Both Garland’s Kamikaze and Armitage’s Remains highlight the unrelenting nature of isolation and personal loss. The poems present speakers who feel powerless within conflict and in the wake of it.

Similarities:

Topic sentence	Both poems highlight isolation and loss after conflict as a result of decisions during war
Evidence and analysis	Kamikaze	Remains
	In Kamikaze, Garland uses the third-person to describe how the family alienates him after he returns home: “They treated him as though he no longer existed”	On the other hand, in Remains, Armitage uses a first-person voice to present the isolation of the soldier himself
	The speaker adopts a reflective tone to indicate her father’s thoughts as he flies over his homeland	The speaker’s tone is disjointed with caesurae and varied sentence lengths to reflect his brutal and haunting memories: “pain itself, the image of agony”
	The enjambment weaves emotion into an otherwise detached third-person perspective, suggesting unresolved feelings between the daughter and her father
	Garland’s speaker, the pilot’s daughter, uses first-person plural pronouns at the end to allude to the personal loss the children felt losing their father: “We too learned to be silent, to live as though he had never returned”	While the start of the poem uses first-person plural pronouns (“all three of us open fire”), this changes to his individual perspective when he returns home (“I see every round as it rips through his life –”): this suggests the isolation he feels after conflict
	The speaker in Remains is left in the “here and now” without resolution (“end of the story. Except not really”), while the speaker in Kamikaze is left wondering if her father has any regrets
	The poem’s speakers are both caught between the present and past, suggesting the relentless nature of their isolation and the far-reaching impact of conflict

Differences:

Topic sentence	While both poets explore the negative impact of conflict on individuals, the poets choose to present different experiences of war and regret
Evidence and analysis	Kamikaze	Remains
	In Kamikaze, the pilot chooses not to engage in conflict, reminded of his love for family and homeland as he flies to a suicide mission	However, in Remains, the first-person speaker has a flashback to a moment during battle which haunts him, suggesting he regrets his actions in conflict
	His decision leads to dishonour and isolation from his family and neighbours for what they believe are cowardly actions	His doubts are presented in the repetition of the line, “probably armed, possibly not”, implying he has considered he may have killed an innocent man
	Kamikaze presents the perspective of an alienated kamikaze pilot choosing family and home over his military duty, whereas Remains shows a soldier’s trauma after war for engaging in his military duty
	Garland’s speaker considers his decision at the end of the poem: suggesting her father may have regretted his decision: “He must have wondered which had been the better way to die”	Armitage’s poet persona is haunted by this moment: “I see every round as it rips through his life” He expresses the powerlessness he feels: “the drink and drugs won’t flush him out”
	Both poems comment on the powerlessness experienced by those involved