kenneth slessor essay: being a resource for students
Uploaded by jezzrix on Nov 30, 2007
Kenneth Slessor wrote many poems such as ‘Beach Burial’, ‘William Street’ and ‘Country Towns’. In many of his poems slessor uses many techniques such as simile, imagery, alliteration, onomatopoeia, personification and tone, to convey his message to the responder. Each of slessor poems all have certain themes, for example “beach burial represents a anti-war theme, William Street represents a theme of poverty and “Country Towns” represents the theme of slow moving and sleepiness, which can relate to the contemporary world we live, therefore being a resource for students.
In the poem ‘Beach Burial’ Slessor creates an anti-war theme. In the first stanza, Slessor explains how sailors and soldiers are shot and killed and left floating in the water which he describes as “the convoys of dead sailors”. He effectively uses rhyme such as “come” and “foam”, “under” and “wander”, to convey that life and dignity has all been lost, and it also creates an vivid imagery of sailors floating in the water and how they role a sure in the morning . Onomatopoeia is also used in the opening stanza’s as it is again continuously throughout the poem such as “gunfire and under”, “come and humbly”. These word combinations add to the sombre tone of the opening stanza by making the stanza flow smoothly, it is the opposite of what to expect, it starts off with a gentle tone.
In the final two stanzas, Slessor describes how there was a sense of urgency, a sense of brutality; this is shown by there is a person who has the “time to pluck them from the shallows and bury them in burrows and tread the sand upon their nakedness”. This person also makes crosses for them and writes “unknown seamen” which becomes smudged from the rain. This shows the loss of identity and honour.
In the final stanza, Slessor represents an anti-war theme of Beach Burial. Slessor, points out enemies killing each other, has robbed these men of time and “the sand joins them together” which represents unity and meet “on the other front” which is conveyed as the afterlife, heaven. Slessor is suggesting ironically all of these men have gone to battle “in search of the same landfall” only to find it loses all meaning in death. This also represents the loss national identity.
‘William Street’ is a poem which compares and contrasts about the beauty and ugliness of the red light...