Analysis practice

by

War Girls

BY JESSIE POPE
There’s the girl who clips your ticket for the train,
  And the girl who speeds the lift from floor to floor,
There’s the girl who does a milk-round in the rain,
  And the girl who calls for orders at your door.
      Strong, sensible, and fit,
      They’re out to show their grit,
    And tackle jobs with energy and knack.
      No longer caged and penned up,
      They’re going to keep their end up
    Till the khaki soldier boys come marching back.
There’s the motor girl who drives a heavy van,
  There’s the butcher girl who brings your joint of meat,
There’s the girl who cries ‘All fares, please!’ like a man,
  And the girl who whistles taxis up the street.
      Beneath each uniform
      Beats a heart that’s soft and warm,
    Though of canny mother-wit they show no lack;
      But a solemn statement this is,
      They’ve no time for love and kisses
    Till the khaki soldier-boys come marching back.

“War girls” is a poem by Jessie Pope, she was born in Leicester, England and educated at the North London Collegiate School for Girls, she became a prolific writer of occasional poetry and prose in later days. The poems describe girls that serve and make sure the city work properly, and work hard to make there kids alive. The poems describe girls using poetic devices like anaphora, exaggerations and repetition to describe them as heroes, but there are actually just normal people, it expresses the respect and admiration of the author to the “war girls”.

The first stanza use two anaphora and an ABAB rhyme scheme in “There’s the girl who clips your ticket for the train,  And the girl who speeds the lift from floor to floor,There’s the girl who does a milk-round in the rain, And the girl who calls for orders at your door.” to made a parallelism because it could express the kind and fit of the war girls, so it connect perfectly to the poem’s theme. Also, in the eighth line, it said “No longer caged and penned up” that symbolized the contempt and oppression mens do to girls (I have no intention of discrimination, just all poem analysis)on jobs and money management, but girls actually does a really good job, which form a big comparison to better express the theme.

In the second stanza, it use anaphora to do the same thing as the first stanza, but this time, there are more jobs for them, in the thirteenth line, it said “There’s the girl who cries ‘All fares, please!’ like a man” this line used cries because there are stressed, but they still be “like a man” this is a respect to them, they were stressed, but still work hard to take the place of man that goes on the battle field.

 In conclusion, the author use anaphora, exaggeration and repetition to state the strength and power of girl, and to express the respect and admiration to the “war girls”, they broke the stereotype of mens and prove themselves by real action.

THINGS THAT I COULD’NT REALY FIGURE OUT

 Why did the author use an repetition for “Till the khaki soldier-boys come marching back” in the end of each line?

leave your answer in the comments!

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Comments (3)

  1. This poem is written in 1914, the very start of the war, because before, there are still many people who think girls is not enough for many jobs, but the war change all that stereotypes, and the mens that think girls is not enough has decreased, thats what I want to add up to

  2. Language point: Review the difference between ‘their’, ‘there’ and ‘they’re’.

    Mostly clear analysis although I’m not clear what your point is about the parallelism (nice bit of technical vocab 👍).

    Good question at the end. Obviously, it establishes the context of the men being away in the battlefield, but the ‘until’ seems to somewhat undermine the women’s right to work in traditionally male roles by making it a temporary situation. Maybe the date the poem was written might help us to better consider an answer to your question?