The Death Of The Ball Turret Gunner Analysis

Literature is not the easiest thing to comprehend. At most, it may be one of the most complicated readings to understand. Authors create their own piece of art, referred to as literature, which creates a hidden message. Will we ever know that message? We, the readers, will most likely never know what the true meaning is in a piece of literature written by whom is not ourselves. We can only make assumptions about the message the author displays. There is no definite answer. Readers often analyze a piece of literature with the use of background information, but how would readers analyze a text within a text itself and only itself? Formalists use this procedure of new criticism to reject any background information to isolate the text and get a closer view. Formalists also use this technique to focus more on the …show more content…
The author may have written a piece of literature that reflects their own message, but readers may define the text in their own way. Formalism gives the author’s readers a chance to make his or hers own connections between literature and his or hers life. Authors often relate their literature to their own life experience. Although reading into a biography of an author hits one limitation of formalism, it helps readers better their understanding of the message in the text. In the poem, “ The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” Randall Jarrell writes, “ I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters/When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.”(5-6). Instantly reading this, readers cannot indicate a clear message or understanding from what is written. Formalism can be used to analyze these lines of a poem. Interpreting a message within this poem may be difficult for readers. Therefore, readers take actions into formalism limitations and look deeper into the author’s life or time period to seek a connection to determine the meaning of his/hers