A Lullaby By Randall Jarrell

Sing Him to Sleep
In the three stanza poem “A Lullaby,” Randall Jarrell conveys the loneliness and alienation of all people during war. The first stanza shows what the soldier gives up to fight in the war. The second stanza shows how the soldier is treated during his time in the army and the third shows the consequences that soldiers have to face. The first stanza uses metaphors and imagery to show what a soldier gives up to fight in a war. Jarrell uses the first two lines, “ For wats his life and half a world away/ The soldier sells his family and days.” As a metaphor for the soldier selling his family and days as a price for fighting in the war. The soldier is not actually selling his family and days but metaphorically giving them up. In …show more content…
In the first line of this stanza, “He picks up matches and he cleans out plates,” imagery is used. Jarrell uses imagery to help the reader understand the harsh conditions of the war such as searching for matches, which create warmth and cleaning out plates for scraps of food. The soldier needs to scavenge to get supplies that are scarcely provided for them in the army. In the second line of the stanza, “Is lied to like a child, cursed like a beast,” Jarrell uses similes and juxtaposition to show how the soldier is treated. These tackle the mental side of the soldiers conditions. Being lied to like a child by putting them down and telling the soldiers what they need to hear to justify their actions. Becoming naive but at the same time feeling cursed like a beast or in another sense a monster. The rest of the stanza goes on to show how they are tagged and have a loss of identity. They become owned by the state and not their own person. The conditions of the war create robots not people. After their actual time in the army this conditions last them a …show more content…
What happens in the war stays with them, and is something they have to deal with for the rest of their lives. The first line of the stanza, “Recalled in dreams or letters, else forgot,” Jarrell talks about the soldiers remembering their time in the war. Recalling what had happened in dreams they have or letters they send to their families. The bad has been forgotten but in the back of their mind it stays forever. The second line of the stanza, “ His life is smothered like a grave, with dirt,” uses a simile to help the reader see the darker side of the soldiers experience. His life has been smothered with dirk like a dead body in a grave, forgotten and covered up. The next line compares a soldier to the short life of a fly, “ And his dull torment mottles like a fly's.” His life becomes shorter and less important as he enters the army. The last line of the poem, “The lying amber of the histories,” discusses the history of the war. The last stanza helps the reader understand Jarrells dark view of the