Medium - a poem

Theme – abruptness of life

How – analyze its meaning on different yet interlocking levels

DEATH OF A BALL TURRET GUNNERby

Randall Jarrell

Randall Jarrell – 1914 – 1956

Joined the Air Force 1942

Flight instructor

Flew no combat missions

Is not the speaker in the poem

Rotating Plexiglasbubble Machine gunbottom of the plane

Ball Turret

Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died They washed me out of the turret with a hose.

Anti-war poem-

Shortness of poem parallels gunner’s life

Life means so little to the government

Death of gunner impacts only his family

,From my mother's sleep I fell into the State

Propertyof the government

Denied a normallife growing up

Innocence lost

Gunner

Forced to leave the protection of home

Awaits the inevitable moment

Drafted – did not want to go

Death - foreshadowed

And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze

Gunner had to be – short, small, non claustrophobic

No room for a parachute

Wet fur – fur lined collar on flight jacket

Becoming “animal like”

Unfeeling

Scene of vulnerability

Gunner -

Paranoid – fear, “I hunched in its belly…”

Shock, realization of possible death

Feels alone and abandoned

Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life

Six miles – dreaming

No future plans

Life cut short

I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters

Woken from dream

Enemy aircraftshooting at him

Reality sets in

Born again – keener awareness

No dreams of youths

Nightmare of reality

Promise of life stolen

When I died,They washed me out of the turret with a hose

Nothing left of the gunner

Steam-emitting hose cleaned up

State- impersonal, numb and destroys life

Hose flushed out the turret

Simplicity of the last line- matter of fact, no note of protest from

family or friends

Society- - indifference to the gunner

Gunner- no emotion towards his own death

Death was inevitable

“Died” not “Killed” – implied some commitmentby the Gunner

What is the relevanceof the poem today ?

Can I view the poem at a different level with a differentmeaning?

DEATH OF THE BALL TURRET GUNNER

An anti-abortion poem

Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died They washed me out of the turret with a hose.

Fetus

Happy, content in the wombuntil it is destroyed

All traces of existence - removed by a cruel act

Viewed as unimportant and worthless by anindifferent institution

Over the course of the poem – pregnancyturns to abortion-

unspoken theme of the poem

“They” use a common method for washingout the remains of a fetus during an abortion just as the gunner had his mutilated body washed out of the turret

Ball turret – belly of the plane

Once enclosed – assumed a fetalposition

Gunner being a fetus passing from mother’swomb to governmentalwomb

With the last line – poet forces us to rethink the whole poem

“Why?”

Doesn’t a person’s life matter?

Human existence cannot be ‘washed out’

Life must hold a greater purpose for each of us