Analysis Of Homecoming By Bruce Dawe

War is considered by many to be one of humanity’s central traits as an advancing species and as such it holds a heavy influence on our past, present and future. From warring tribes in Africa during the dawn of man to the great Empires of Greece and Persia warfare has always been present, whether this war is for defense of a homeland and families, to conquest for more power and wealth or freedom from persecution and oppression. These forces drive mankind and have pushed us technologically and socially. While war may be a central aspect of mankind it is something that causes deep felt feelings and views that bring forward strong emotions in many people. It is from these deep feeling and emotions that we see famous poems created and revealed that …show more content…
This was the landscape that we find ourselves in during the Vietnam War. This war was not seen as a war fighting for our survival like WW1 and WW2 but instead this was a war that people saw as a waste of our young Australian lives and this is exactly what Bruce Dawe puts forward in his poem “Homecoming”. Dawe’s whole poem revolves around the waste of lives that have occurred during the Vietnam War and his use of the word Homecoming, which is usually regarded as a joyous and happy moment is replaced with heavy irony of returning the bodies of the …show more content…
This sense of waste that is conveyed through Dawe’s words in respect to human life is also mirrored in Andrew Motion’s “Regime Change” which takes this sense of waste and refers to the waste of Ancient and historic sites that have been caused by the War in Iraq. Motion mentions throughout his poem, religious icons and places: “Take Eden, further South”, “That gorgeous fruit”, “Take Babylon”, Take Tigris and Euphrates”. These iconic Middle eastern places of historic importance, legend or of religious importance are then shown to be wasted and ruined: “tear away/Its walls and gates”, I Have filled them up/With countless different kinds of human crap”. This sense of waste and unholy destruction give the reader the sense of destruction and chaos that war causes and this recurring waste that is the result. These poems demonstrate the pointlessness of some conflicts and how it can have a huge detrimental affect on life and the environment around us, and it reminds the reader that in war nothing is protected, no matter how sacred or