The Death Of Ball Turret Gunner

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The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" is straightforward; it's not difficult to read or understand what Jarrell is trying to convey. The poem represents simplicity with only five lines. Jarrell's introduction in THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICA LITERATURE (Volume E) can attest to that with the following: "Jarrell stands out for his colloquial plainness." While other poets wrote complicated poems, Jarrell as The Norton states wrote simple poems, what he called the "dailiness of life." This "dailiness of life" is represented in "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" (1945), for the language signifies simplicity rather than complexity.The poem is rather brief, five lines to be exact. However, it does have a powerful message behind it. The war element is clearly present in the poem. The first line, "From my mother's sleep I fell into the State," can be interpreted as a young teenager who is drafted to go to war by the United States of America. It appears as if he does not want to go, for the threat of being killed in action is possible. The first line also shows a consolatory moment where he is under the belly of his mother, awaiting the inevitable moment to be called for war duties. The second line puts the young soldier in a position where he is inside a fighter jet in combat and becomes paranoid, supported by the statement in line two: "And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze." His entire body is basically in shock when he realizes that he is in war, positioned in the belly of a fighter jet aircraft. (The ball turret was a circular sphere, embedded with two machine guns, located below the B-17 or B-24, leaving the gunner in a dangerous position and easily hit by gunfire.) While he's in the belly of the aircraft, the soldier who is flying maneuvers the aircraft way above ground level to avoid enemy fire and loses sight of the earth, supported by line three:

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