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Medium - a poem
Theme – abruptness of life
How – analyze its meaning on different yet interlocking levels
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DEATH OF A BALL TURRET GUNNERby
Randall Jarrell
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Randall Jarrell – 1914 – 1956
Joined the Air Force 1942
Flight instructor
Flew no combat missions
Is not the speaker in the poem
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Rotating Plexiglasbubble Machine gunbottom of the plane
Ball Turret
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Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died They washed me out of the turret with a hose.
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Anti-war poem-
Shortness of poem parallels gunner’s life
Life means so little to the government
Death of gunner impacts only his family
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,From my mother's sleep I fell into the State
Propertyof the government
Denied a normallife growing up
Innocence lost
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Gunner
Forced to leave the protection of home
Awaits the inevitable moment
Drafted – did not want to go
Death - foreshadowed
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And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze
Gunner had to be – short, small, non claustrophobic
No room for a parachute
Wet fur – fur lined collar on flight jacket
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Becoming “animal like”
Unfeeling
Scene of vulnerability
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Gunner -
Paranoid – fear, “I hunched in its belly…”
Shock, realization of possible death
Feels alone and abandoned
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Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life
Six miles – dreaming
No future plans
Life cut short
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I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters
Woken from dream
Enemy aircraftshooting at him
Reality sets in
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Born again – keener awareness
No dreams of youths
Nightmare of reality
Promise of life stolen
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When I died,They washed me out of the turret with a hose
Nothing left of the gunner
Steam-emitting hose cleaned up
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State- impersonal, numb and destroys life
Hose flushed out the turret
Simplicity of the last line- matter of fact, no note of protest from
family or friends
Society- - indifference to the gunner
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Gunner- no emotion towards his own death
Death was inevitable
“Died” not “Killed” – implied some commitmentby the Gunner
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What is the relevanceof the poem today ?
Can I view the poem at a different level with a differentmeaning?
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DEATH OF THE BALL TURRET GUNNER
An anti-abortion poem
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Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died They washed me out of the turret with a hose.
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Fetus
Happy, content in the wombuntil it is destroyed
All traces of existence - removed by a cruel act
Viewed as unimportant and worthless by anindifferent institution
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Over the course of the poem – pregnancyturns to abortion-
unspoken theme of the poem
“They” use a common method for washingout the remains of a fetus during an abortion just as the gunner had his mutilated body washed out of the turret
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Ball turret – belly of the plane
Once enclosed – assumed a fetalposition
Gunner being a fetus passing from mother’swomb to governmentalwomb
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With the last line – poet forces us to rethink the whole poem
“Why?”
Doesn’t a person’s life matter?
Human existence cannot be ‘washed out’
Life must hold a greater purpose for each of us
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