Q1 of 10 Page 74

What does the poet mean by "haunted nights' cowed subjection ..... dreams that drip with murder"?

Throughout the poem, the poet addresses the plight of the soldiers that survive the war. In the given lines, the poet states that the soldier has haunted nights as he experiences nightmare; in his dreams the soldier sees the ghost of his friends who died fighting in the war. The soldiers’ dreams are filled with horrible sights of killing and bloodshed which his conscience believes to be murder; his dreams are filled dripping with blood and he won’t be forgetting any of it soon.


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1

"Men who went out to battle, grim and glad;

children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad."


a) What contrasting picture of soldiers is given in the last two lines?


b) Bring out the significance of the following phrases from the poem.


i) 'grim and glad'


ii) 'eyes that hate you’

 1

Do you know that one of the symptoms of combat fatigue or 'neurasthenia' is a stammer and a failure to string sentences together coherently? The poem portrays the grim untold reality of war. Is it a truthful one? Give reasons.

 1

The combatants went into war as men, 'grim and glad' and returned as children, 'broken and mad'. Explain why?

 1

Why do people go to war? Has war ever served any purpose? Substantiate your point of view by giving examples from world events.