Randall Jarrell's "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" - Primary Blog entry only

2/12/2015

Now that you have spent some time reading and considering the imagery, connotation, and theme in Randall Jarrell's poem, please respond to the following writing prompt:

In reference to his poem, Jarrell wrote that the gunner, who sat hunched up and revolved with the turret, looked like a fetus in the womb. Based on this information, how would you interpret the first four lines of the poem? Remember to refer to the figurative imagery and connotation found within these lines.
What does the abrupt and literal imagery of the last line suggest about the speaker’s attitude toward death, specifically in war?

Please compose a Primary Blog entry of between 200 and 250 words (be sure to add word count at the end of your post).

No Secondary Blog entries needed for this posting.

2/12/2015 02:47:51 am

This Poem represents child birth. The State is the mother, the Ball Turret is the sack the baby is when it is in the womb, when the soldier gets into the Ball turret they are the fetus. Lines 3 and 4 represent destruction of the real world and just pretty much war. The last line of the poem is when people die life still goes on.

2/12/2015 02:58:50 am

The first four lines of the poem, “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” by Randall Jarrell are written in figurative language. When reading this poem, I thought about what these verses could mean. “From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State”, this line sounds like he had gotten involved in something without his mother’s knowledge. The word “sleep” in this context sounds like it is referencing to her not being introduced, or awoken to this act. “And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze”, sounds almost like a baby being born. Hunched up and hiding in the womb until it’s born where the “fur” or fine hairs on the baby are cold from being brought into the new and strange world. Like being new to something or trying something out, “getting your feet wet”. “Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life”, the line here sounds like his mind is up in the air, away from the worlds dream or vision of how people should live and go about their lives. “I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.” Now this line definitely says he’s waking up to reality. To everyone and everything trying to ruin things for him or tare him down, like society.
“When I died they washed me out the turret with a hose.” This last line definitely is written in a literal tense. I think this shows that his view of death is not to be played with, or viewed in any way except the way it actually is. It isn’t beautiful, or pleasant, it’s an unfortunate event that should be taken seriously and moved on from. Not to ponder about, or fantasize about, it’s just the way it is.
word count:: 292

2/12/2015 03:01:21 am

This poem is about birth of these soldiers and their lives, especially on the use of their life and how innocent their lives are to just be taken away and not really admired as much as it should be. The value of their to these other people are replaceable. Their just used for the Turret once dead they're forgotten about and another soldier would then be in use.

2/12/2015 03:12:53 am

That's very true I didn't really think about it in that way .

2/12/2015 03:08:06 am

What I can interpret from the first lines of this poem is that the gunner entered war while he was young and innocent. He wanted to fight for his country and he left his mother prematurely. The gunner inside the turret was only a child, small and scrawny enough to fit inside like being in his own mother’s womb. The fur freezing is like what a baby might feel when they are born if they have hair. The gunner usually may fall asleep during the trip to enemy lines, dreaming peacefully only to awaken to a scary nightmare that is otherwise known as war. When the gunner falls asleep it is similar to when a baby is peacefully and quietly dreaming about life before it is born.
The literal imagery of the last line of this poem shows that men who are in an aircraft will save that majority and sacrifice the life of the man in the most dangerous part of the plane. The speaker interprets death as being predictable when at war. If you are the man in the ball turret of the aircraft and the plane gets damaged and you can’t land easily, you can see it coming that your life is about to end. Death in war can be predictable using machinery such as an aircraft. The men who are in the ball turret are usually young, small and have not had the chance to really live life to the fullest. The gunners might end up dying at a young age though they only wanted to fight for their country.

2/12/2015 03:17:17 am

I liked how you talked about how men on the aircraft mostly focus on the individuals who are on the top of the plane and not much the people who are on the bottom. That's very true in a lot of cases because its almost as if they've forgotten about you.

2/12/2015 03:10:11 am

The first four lines from “The Death Of The Ball Turret Turner” , by Jarrell have metaphors such as Mother’s which is talking about the U.S government, hunched is basically talking about how he’s in a fetus position, “six miles from earth” is talking about the real world destruction and it says that he woke up in black flak and the nightmare fighters which is talking about how he wakes up to the enemy and now they’re at war.
The last line is basically saying that when he died, they washed his body with a hose which basically means that he was irreplaceable and they didn’t actually care about him. The last line also doesn’t have a metaphor , it’s just straight forward which shows how the author feels as if they betrayed him because when he was on the plane he was comfortable and safe , but then when he died, they chose to just wash him up with a hose as if he’s nothing of importance.

2/12/2015 03:57:51 am

The poem talks about birth. For example, how this guy in the belly of them. His fur is wet from the coldness in the ball turret. The ball turret represents the belly or womb. The guy from or in the turret is an innocent young guy. Just like 15 or 16 years old. The part where he says or writes “I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.” (Jarrell, the death of the ball turret gunner) That one sentence is about how he woke up and they were being shot at. He was waking and he saw war up in the sky. “Six miles from earth” (Jarrell, the death of the ball turret gunner), this line is what is explained as the real or reality of the world being destroyed or being used to kill the other people. The ‘world’ wanted peace and happiness and she got a war and a whole lot of death.
The author’s attitude toward the last line is that he does not like war at all. He feels sad or sorry for that guy that was replaced. He is angry because the army just used a hose to wash this guy’s remains and just didn’t care about what they were or who they were. That person was not just replaceable, he was expendable to the government. As if he wasn’t a guy or person but a number and only a number to the government. This kind of feels like LOVE 146. Where the girls are numbers and no one cares about what or who they are.

2/12/2015 03:59:25 am

This Poem represents child birth/abortion. The State represents the mother, the Ball Turret represents the sack the baby is when it is in the womb, when the soldier gets into the Ball turret they are the fetus. In line 1 it represents a mother who is unfit to raise a child. Unaware of what can happen when she gives she turns to abortion as an option. Line 2 represents the fetus feeling when it is inside of the womb. Lines 3 and 4 represent destruction of the real world and just pretty much war. The last line of the poem is when people die life still goes on. As the baby gets sucked out of their mother they just put it to the side. Even though the baby is no longer alive, the mother will still carry on her life. Nothing will stop with or without it in life. This poem relates to war and abortion because soldiers fight for their rights and babies fights for their rights to continuing living. The U.S. government takes care of the baby that the mother couldn’t and that is either abortion or given up for adoption.

2/12/2015 04:31:45 am

The poem “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” represents birth/child abortion. This is shown in the first line when it says “From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State” the meaning of this first line is that his mother wasn’t aware of her giving birth to her son so he fell into the U.S government which was his “new mother.” With the next line “And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze” the meaning of this line is that when he was in the ball turret he was in the fetus position and was in the “womb” of the war since that was his new mother. His wet fur froze is the fur jacket they wore with their uniforms to keep him warm as if he was in the “womb” but it froze since the plane didn’t have heaters. The next line “Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life” means that the earths dream of life is loosed because of all the wars and the destruction that we have caused toward earth. Then “I woke to black flake and the nightmare fighters” means that when he woke from flying into the enemy’s territory he woke to the black flake they threw at the planes and the enemies planes attacking them. With the last line there isn’t a metaphor it seems that Randall Jarrell didn’t care about the war because he felt that they didn’t care for him. For the war everyone is replaceable which made he him feel a certain way about the war. He was expendable. (265)

2/12/2015 07:16:33 am

The first 4 lines of the poem are explaining how the man was hunched in the Turk, metaphorically like as when a baby is in a womb and he’s sleeping and just dreaming about good things, but when dreaming was over, he woke up to what was happening in the present which was a war occurring. I interpret the 4 lines as a distraction from the war. Randall was describing how he was giving his life to the military and then at the end how they just replaced him.

The last literal imagery of the last line in the poem suggests how the author demonstrates his attitude towards randall’s death and how the the army just replaced him so easily, as a matter of fact this situation is very common. So it was basically a really big deal for the author to open up in a case that has happened to many people who have served in the army. So basically overall, randall, like every other soldier equally fought for their country, and at the end, whether they lived or not, for the army, life still goes on, but not when it comes to their families. This very familiar case can be fair to the army, but really, these are people who died serving their country and they should not be forgotten this easily, for example, no person dies for a group of people, either because they are young or they want more of what is life. It's obviously not easy for a soldier to accept the fact that at any minute he’ll be dying. But of course, many people don't understand that part because they are ignorant and since it isn't them dying, they don't care as much as they should.

2/12/2015 10:00:25 am

In the poem " The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner", Randall Jarrell shows how the soldiers inside the turrets are similar to babies inside their mother's womb. In the first four lines of the poem Randall Jarrell says "From my mother's sleep I fell into the State[...]" which means that the soldier are now being taken care of by the US government. It also means that as they are being born, they are being exposed to new things. In the second line of the poem that says "Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters", this shows that the soldier inside the ball turret would be awaken to a fire fight during their travels. It also can mean that as babies are brought into this world, they would be force to experience real life dangers and destruction like how the soldier are facing as they fight in the war.

As Randall Jarrell wrote " When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose", he feels that even in the war when a soldier dies, they could be expendable which means that they could be easily replaced with another person to run the ball turret. When the soldiers would be killed in battle in the ball turret, they would still use the plane that he was killed in and just replace anything that was damaged and bring in someone else.

2/12/2015 10:39:47 am

In the first four line of the poem "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" by Randall Jarrell it shows birth, innocents, and abotion. In the first four line it tells us how the mother had her son in her belly which represent him being in the ball turrent. Where he had very little room just how he was in his mother belly. Being in the cold world explains the wet fur frozen. Having nightmare fighters because of war that have been going on.
In the last line Randall Jarrell goes straight to the fact in no matter how many fighters we have & how many will die there will always be someone else born who will one day be in the same position.

2/12/2015 10:40:03 am

I would I interpret the first four lines of the poem, " The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner " by Randall Jarrell in the figurative sense. In those first four lines I thought of a person going through a horrendous situation that had a bad outcome and changed their life.The lines, " From my mother's sleep I fell into the state, and I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Shows me a picture in my head of a person enduring the pain from a situation whether it's their physical or mental being, they are being conflicted and can't stand up for themselves. The lines " Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters". Is showing me that they've opened their eyes and realized that the situation has changed them and the way they view the world. In some cases people putting each other down or causing pain to one another in order for them to feel good about themselves or to have some personal gain affects some people to have a change in view and see now "The Black Flak" that people hide behind and the people who don't look back at the damaged they caused someone because they don't have a care in the world, making that person "loosed from its dream of life" because they can never go back to the way they were.

2/12/2015 10:42:34 am

The poem “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” is quite a masterpiece due to its in-depth meaning that you can only get if you read between the lines. Though it is about the ordinary death of a ball turret gunner, the poem connotes/implies something beyond the idea of war. For instance, in the first line of the poem it states “From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State”, Randall starts to make the connection between turret gunners and new born babies. The line represents how these young men, from a symbolic birth, were under the control of the government without their mothers knowing. All in all the four lines represents how these young men that make living off of being turret gunners are put into war as young men that are too innocent for such things. It implies they are babies who have not seen horrid things as they just came out of their mother’s womb.
As you read the poem, it is evident that the tone of the poem shifts very abruptly particularly at the very last line. It transitions from talking about the innocence of these young men fresh out of the womb to dying in combat and dispatched of. In this sentence it is clear that Randall is trying to speak harshly about the death of these young men in war. He seems to imply that death in war, even though thought of as an act of valor, is one not even worthwhile. In the end death in war is not one of valor but is just a consequence of men of power trying to accomplish a mission. The death of one is not at all deterring while in war.

23 link

2/12/2015 12:14:34 pm

In this poem we see that the author uses a lot of figurative language and behind all that
language there is a deep meaning that is depicted through war. In these first lines he talks about a
ball turret gunner as if hes in the womb of a woman and by this he means that he is in the fetal
position with his warm jacket almost in a daze because hes well comfortable in this turret and is
asleep but is then “born” when he wakes up into the hell that is the real world or in other words,
the war. In war or the real world we see how tough it can be and how its risky because you never
know what you're gonna be born in to. In the end we see that he views war as a cruel place and
with the last line of the poem you can easily see how in the end you die, in this case they washed
him out of the turret with a hose. This shows us that his look on death in war is that everyone is
extremely expendable, they just clean up the turret and just place someone else in it and up again
they go. In war death is common and in life someone dies and someone else is born into
whatever lifestyle they are born into.

2/12/2015 01:04:39 pm

The first four lines of the poem, “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner”, by Randall Jarrell are very symbolic. Each phase has a literal meaning or it can also mean something else. The first line states, “From my mother’s sleep I feel into the State.” Since State is capitalized it most likely means the U.S government. He fell into the U.S government ever since birth; the government would be the army. Line two says “And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.” This means he tried to fit in the army, hunched up, his fur or softness froze or became hardened and strong. The next line says “Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life.” This line is symbolic to the planes that they use in the army, on the plane he is six miles from earth in the shooting turret. The fourth line says, “I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters." This line is saying that he ended up in the air with fighter planes.
The last final line says, “When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.” The abrupt and literal meaning is that his life was ended very horribly. It is obvious that he gave his life to something and he was not appreciated for it. Turret Gunner was instantly replaced and washed away. The speaker’s attitude towards death is that when you die you can be replaced right away. He feels that the army takes death like its nothing because they have other people to do the job once you’re gone.

1 :)

2/12/2015 01:35:28 pm

I would interpret the first four lines in the poem “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner”, by Randall Jarrell, as metaphors. For example the first two lines state, “From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State --- And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze”, figuratively it seems like Jarrell is being born into the world from his mother who is unconscious. However, connotatively Jarrell is just a naive young man who fell into the ‘State’ aka the U.S. Government during his mother’s ‘sleep’, being unaware of what he has done. Also, for the second line figuratively Jarrell is hunched, almost like being in a fetal position, being inside of the turret where his ‘wet fur’ being his many layers worn due to the cold and condensation. Whereas for the third and fourth line, Jarrell states, “Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, --- I woke up to black flak and the nightmare fighters” figuratively it seems like Jarrell is waking up to reality and sees black flak everywhere and enemies during a war. However, connotatively there is a war going on earth which can be described as a real world destruction and Jarrell waking up his nightmare, which is really reality.
The last line of the poem suggests that the Jarrell’s attitude towards death in the war is annoyed and expendable. For example Jarrell is speaking for those who are in the turret, who end up dying are easily replaced since they can really grab anyone else to take that position. However, for the individual’s family, they are not easily replaced. Hence, the attitude being annoyed.

2/12/2015 03:32:52 pm

In the poem The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner, writer Randall Jarrell metaphorically speaks about birth in the first four lines out of the 5 line poem. The first line speaks about how a newborn is positioned in their mother’s stomach in the fetal position ready for birth, but in reality it’s over passionate young boys sneaking in to the army to fight for their country without their mothers consent. Moving onto the second line Jarrell describes how when newborns are birthed, they enter the world with their hair and bodies covered in amniotic fluid. In the second to last sentence of the poem, Jarrell portrays how a newborn feels as they enter this new world around them, unaware of this new place, they enter a nightmare.
In the final line, “When I died they washed me out the turret with a hose”(Jarrell 1945), shows how death in war is almost expected and inevitable. There was no time to worry about the life that was just loss. They had to clean out the turret and place the next possible victim inside and get ready for another battle. Death was simply apart of war life.

2/12/2015 03:39:02 pm

The poem "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner," by Randall Jarrell depicts the use of metaphors to provide a better understanding. First line of the poem "From my mother's sleep I fell into the State", and in this case the "State" is the US government which means that comfort and safety will be provided. The second line of the poem "And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze," Jarrell seems to have better closure knowing that he will protected by his mother. Again "hunched in its belly" is a way of clawing back to his mother when he happens to find himself in a risky situation. Third line "Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream," Jarrell being away from his mother is weighing deeply on him that he has lost sight of his real dream. And also since Jarrell is far away from his family, he is having difficult time adjusting and fitting in to the new environment. The last line, "I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters," the flak is the gunfire fired towards Jarrell's and his crew by the Germans or Japanese. The whole fight is very surreal to Jarrell because this is probably his first time being caught up in a gun fight involving explosives like bombs, so as a result he had nightmares about the battle frequently and likelihood of him dying as a in the fight.

3/2/2015 05:29:58 am

This poem is talking about a soldier in battle that’s working the ball turret gun. In the poem, it says that the person working the ball turret gun looks like a fetus in the womb. Based on the first 4 lines of this poem I can tell that the ball you go in to work the gun is really small. When you work the ball turret gun, you’re really scrunched up. You look like you’re a baby in your mother’s stomach. That’s where the author got the image from. The author’s attitude toward death in ware is really serious. I can tell that he’s serious about death in war because at the end of the poem he says “When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose”. This quote shows that he’s very serious about death in war.

3/2/2015 10:10:03 am

After reading the first couple lines of the poem,interpretating it i would say that it speaks of the innocence that these soldiers carry with them. For these soldiers they are stepping into the war blinded by the unexpected. These lines also reflect how these soldiers feel empty and are missing their loved ones at home. That last line in the poem"when i died the washed me out of the turret with a hose" this shows how when the soldiers died they didnt really give them the respect as an individual that died. They were just seen as another body.

3/2/2015 11:24:30 am

In other words Randall Jarrell is trying to say “from my mothers sleep I fell into the State” he is trying to say his mother was unaware that he was going to be apart of the US government (the army). And in the next line “ And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze” In other words he is saying he was in the bottom of the plane and its so cold so the fur of his coat is frozen and wet because it is so cold. The 3rd and 4th line says “ six miles from earth loosed from its dream of life” and “I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters” hes saying basically he died by being scratched all over the cement.
Randell attitude for death in the army is that he feels like when you die nobody gets recognized when they die because they just washed him out with hose like its nothing. Like he was a nobody when all reality he may had had a family or something.

3/2/2015 11:29:44 am

The first four lines in the poem The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner means that the poet explained how a person who was brought into the world of life and then suddenly his life was sadly taken away by a horrible accident. “From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State” shoes a person looking down at the depths of the Earth as if he’s falling down to his death with his mom not knowing his apparent faith. “And I hunched in it’s belly till my wet fur froze” is describing a person inside a turret gunner, not being able to move around that much, similar to a woman’s womb that has a growing child inside them who cannot move around that much. “Six miles from earth, loosed from it’s dream of life” describes how the Earth can be beautiful for it’s nature, environment, and all life that lives in it, set as a playground area where you discover things that can become a reality. “When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose” describes a bead body that has no meaning of life anymore. The speakers attitude towards the last line of the poem is that even though the enemies has taken a soldier’s life away from them, the enemies has disrespected the deceased soldier as they hosed it’s corpse out of the turret and shows that human beings can be really heartless and once he was gone he knew that his spot would just be replaced with someone else who could do his job.that a person’s life should never be taken away, because if the person’s life is taken away they can never have it back again as their life has ended shortlessly. Word count: 291

3/3/2015 03:18:21 am

From the first lines of Randall Jarrell’s poem “The death of Ball Turret Gunner” the figurative interpretation of them is evident. “From my mother’s sleep I fell into this State, and I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.” He sat hunched up and revolved with the turret, looked like a fetus in the womb. This interpretation makes it seem that Gunner was drafted to the war at a young age. Scared of what could happen to him in this war. “Six miles from Earth, loosed from its dream of life.” He’s high in the sky looking down realizing that any second he could be shot out of the sky. At this point in “The Death of Ball Turret Gunner” he awakens from his previous dream like state to the reality of war. “I woke to black flack and the nightmare fighters.” When he came back from his daydream the war was still going on and the people in the turret where shooting. “When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.” Gunner’s attitude toward death is it is not a big deal to the mean in the war. People die every day in war and his death was not that significant. “They washed me out of the turret with a hose” gives the impression that the death of the men who died wasn’t a big deal and they had to move on. This shows that life is short and can end at any moment.
Word Count: 251

3/5/2015 06:40:40 am

"From my mother's sleep I fell into the State", this line explains how he was somewhere he wasn’t suppose to be and his mother was unaware. He had no idea where he is and he is scared. "And I hunched in it's belly till my wet fur froze." In this line, he was curled up in his mother's belly all wet. But in the figurative meaning he was in the belly of the plane and felt wet because of his frozen fur coat. "Sex miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life" this line states how he feels far away from Earth, lost in the Earth. In the figurative meaning he was flying high in the sky, he also feels like he has lost. "I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters." This line explains how he wakes up from the nightmare and he's in peace. In other meanings, he finally realizes what he was going through was a nightmare, now he is finally awake and is able to move on. "When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose." Now that he is gone, he realizes he was nothing but a replacement. They washed him off like he was nothing, like he was a waste. He was done.

WC: 215

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