snowflakes

The falling leaves Evaluate the use of metaphor in an anti-war poem

Margaret Postgate Cole As a young woman, Cole began to question the role of religion, adopting atheist views. Her brother, Raymond Postgate, was imprisoned during WW1 as a conscientious objector, as the court didn’t accept that his atheism was a valid reason for not fighting. When he was eventually forced to sign up, he was found to be medically unfit, but because the public was so sure that any young man not in uniform must be a coward, he went on the run. It was during her brother’s trial that Margaret Postgate’s views of the Great War were transformed. Her support for her brother confirmed her as a pacifist and led her to campaign against conscription, or forced enlistment.

Task Can you find the metaphors that symbolises the soldiers and the experience and outcome of war? METAPHOR-describing one thing as another to reflect the qualities of the described object. The butterfly in the boxing ring evaded his opponent.

Group 1 snowflakes

Group 2 falling leaves

Group 3 a still afternoon

Multiple interpretations When you consider many/multiple things (suggestions) that a quote/language devices suggests you. Explain what a metaphor shows you about the soldiers, giving multiple interpretations Cole uses the metaphor of snowflakes to portray the soldiers in her poem. They are described as ‘withering’. This suggests that the soldiers experience a painful and slow death in the war, and also that their physical strength is diminished. Being compared to snowflakes symbolises the huge scale of deaths of soldiers that the war caused…

The falling leaves Today, as I rode by, I saw the brown leaves dropping from their tree In a still afternoon, When no wind whirled them whistling to the sky, But thickly, silently, They fell, like snowflakes wiping out the noon; And wandered slowly thence For thinking of a gallant multitude Which now all withering lay, Slain by no wind of age or pestilence, But in their beauty strewed Like snowflakes falling on the Flemish clay.

Flemish clay-Belgian soil on the battleground.

Representation of soldiers ‘No wind whirled them whistling to the sky'. What does this suggest about their death? what does gates mean when she describes the soldiers as ‘slain by no wind of age or pestilence’? What do ‘snowflakes’ suggest about the soldiers? Consider what happens to snowflakes when they fall to the ground. What does the phrase ‘beauty strewed’ reflect about the manner in which soldiers die?

The leaves represent soldiers on the battlefield who are left to rot, forgotten and lost forever. Another metaphor is "Like snowflakes falling on the Flemish clay." The snowflakes represent the soldiers, melting together, forgotten. The Flemish clay is the Belgian soil where the fighting took place.

What is Cole’s view of the soldiers? The word ‘ ’…………. The phrase ‘’ ………….