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Weapons Training by Bruce Dawe The poem highlights the regimentation and humiliation dished out during defence training.

1. Who is ‘I’? Is the reader supposed to sympathise with him, do you think

2. What’s happening here? What is the context? 3. Why is the language clipped, the tone condescending?

4. What is the purpose of omitting most of the punctuation, including full stops and capital letters?

5. What concepts do you consider demeaning to the soldiers

and is the speaker’s choice of language acceptable in either the armed forces or in civilian life? Why has Dawe written in this way?

6. The speaker in the poem refers to ‘a mob of the little yellows’ and the ‘Charlies’ with their ‘rotten fish-sauce breath’. To

whom is he referring and why has Dawe chosen language that most people would consider racist and offensive?

7. Does the opening line set the tone for the poem? How

effective are onomatopoeic words ‘click’ and ‘pitter-patter’? 8. What is the point of the last line and the repetition of ‘dead’?

9. Dawe has chosen to use a regular rhyme scheme for this poem – abba – and finishing with a rhyming couplet. What is the effect of this?

What is the point of this poem? Would you consider this an

anti-war poem? Explain.

Notes per line

The poem starts in the middle of a sentence, giving the impression that we might have fallen asleep like one of the

young recruits being shouted at. It serves to catch our attention.

Note the use of spaces and pauses: these indicate a dramatic

monologue, because they are natural spaces to take breath. Dramatic monologues give insight into the speaker, their

situation, and the people around the speaker and their reactions.

pitter-patter is generally a gentle sound, but in this context it is

made to sound harsh. are you a queer? - this question reflects the tone of the whole

poem: to be called a "queer" is obviously insulting to these men. Also is the start of a whole string of insults littered through the monologue, delivered in a blunt, confronting tone. The question

mark is also the first use of punctuation, as the speaker pauses for impact - and breath.

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Eventually we get to the heart of the matter - the instructions the sergeant is giving: "Cockpit drill" where soldiers drop to the

ground and return fire, and the weapon checks. The poem is full of crude sexual references: "Cockpit drill" and

"crown jewels", for example. mob of the little yellows - the sergeant dehumanises the enemy

by making a racist comment, thus making it easier for the

soldiers to kill them (if they're not really people, it doesn't matter if they die).

turning the key in the ignition, apart from being an obvious reference to sex, serves to give the soldiers hope by reminding them of coming back home.

The sergeant has drifted slightly, with alright now he gets back on track, and throws a problem at the soldiers, to make them

feel uncomfortable. They are conscript soldiers and unused to the strict discipline of the Army; the sergeant must show his authority to impress into them the necessity of listening to him:

it's the only hope they've got of staying alive. He drops back into dramatic monologue, using "you" all the way

because in the end it will be up to the individual soldiers to determine what happens to them.

a number-one blockage refers to a certain technical problem. The

sergeant is teaching his soldiers to learn by terrorising them. Charlies is a racist name given to the Viet Cong. At every

opportunity he degrades the enemy: rotten fish-sauce breath; they are ugly, etc.

it's not a woman's tit - back to sex references, reinforced with worse luck - because in this case, it's bad luck it's not a woman!

tripes is slang for "guts" (which I guess is slang for "stomach and intestines"!) Here Dawe shows how bloody war is - this is a vivid image that brings to mind images of battle.

Like I said ... you're dead dead dead : the message of this poem; leaves us with a sense of foreboding, that most people in this

group will end up "dead dead dead".

General Notes

Dawe shows the realities of war: alive one moment, dead the next. too late ... your tripes are round your neck ... you know what you are? You're dead dead dead. Here we see the explicit crudity of the sergeant, and the

repetition of "dead" emphasises the message the officer wants to drill into his soldiers. They are taught to hate, fear, and listen to authority, so they won't just go out and die needlessly. The

officer does this by asserting his authority and convincing them that war is real, not a game: they are sent out not only with a

weapon, but as a weapon.

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The soldiers need to be numbed of all emotion when on the field. Crude, racist jargon is used so they will view the enemy as

subhuman and feel no emotion for them. The officer is not malicious: he is doing his job, and he will do

anything he has to keep the boys alive. There is no clear structure and the rhyme scheme is

unobtrusive, which emphasises the monologue form of the

poem: despite the rhymes, the poem still sounds like human speech.

The repetition of "T" and "I" sounds in words like "click" and

"pitter-patter" are onomatopoeic and sound like weaponry. The soldiers are being turned into weapons themselves (so that their

gun is merely an extension of themselves). This poem is not ironic; the use of voice is almost a parody of a

sergeant, but the edge to the tone gives away his fear that these

soldiers will just go and die.

Questions

What initial impression do we get of the instructor? What is our attitude to him and what he represents?

How do we know it is the voice of somebody who has power or control in this situation?

Why does the instructor raise the issue of protecting the

genitalia? Why does he speak about the enemy in the way he does?

What do you think the instructor hopes to achieve? Is your attitude towards the instructor changed by the end of

the poem?