When They Die They Sing Analysis

Much like social injustice, war has been universal. No matter what religion a nation is or how developed it is, war is inevitable. The texts for class demonstrate how destructive war is. It also exemplifies how manipulative and cunning it could be too. In the three very different texts: When they Die, They Sing,” “Thinking of a Friend Lost in the Tibetan War,” and “Cornwall Hill,” we can see very different attitudes in their stances on war. They took unique stances on how soldiers perceive war and how they described war. However, despite the difference in attitudes towards war, the three texts emphasize how destructive war can be to humanity. In the three poems, there are different perspectives on how soldiers and civilians view war. In “Thinking …show more content…
For example, in “When They Die, They Sing,” the author goes into the soldier’s mind as he marches to his death. He evokes this fearful respect for war. Throughout, lines such as “bombs gravitate toward my body” and “Explosion! And a buddy falls,” evokes fear in the reader, just as the soldier probably felt. However, it also instills a sense of honor. While the war is scary for everyone involved, there is this overriding sense of valiant bravery. In both “Cornwall Hill” and Zhang Ji’s reflections and poems, we only see the aftermath or the outsider’s view which does not give us a perspective on the war, but allows us to speculate. Based on the stanzas, I would argue that for GF Johnson, war is like a coin toss. Sometimes people win, sometimes they lose, but nevertheless, war is necessary. In this case, the author seems to reflect on war as being something that causes pain even though the men died in a “glorified” manner. Zhang Ji’s portrays the war as something horrendous. Even though he does not go into exact detail, the reader feels the sense that the war was the reason for the anonymity of the soldier’s death, for killing young men for no reason, and for the losses that the narrator feels after losing a loved