Recruiting

== =‘Recruiting’= =E.A. Mackintosh=

“Recruiting” shows that the reality of war is different to the propaganda. The poem contains bitter criticism of the politicians who sent the soldiers off to war and the journalists who write about it. The poem comments on the recruitment drive in Britain, taking issue, in particular, with posters encouraging young men to sign up to the army. Mackintosh focuses on the discrepancy between the image of war as presented by the advertising campaign of the “fat civilians” and the reality of war as experienced by the young “lads” called up to fight.
 * Consists of 11 stanzas, each made up of 4 lines (quatrains) with a regular rhyme scheme abcb defe ghih.
 * The poem has a powerful rhythm, reflecting the way young men were cajoled into going to war without giving it proper consideration.
 * The poem is an obvious attack written from a soldier’s perspective who has experienced the reality of war and realised the falsity of such advertising campaigns.

THINKING POINTS

 * 1) How does the poet use the following techniques to get the point across: a) the four line verse (quatrain); b) colloquial language; c) rhyme; d) alliteration
 * 2) The poem uses accessible, straightforward language. What does this suggest about the purpose and audience it was written for?


 * Useful Quotations & Explanations:**

-**"Fat civilians wishing they could go and fight the Hun. Can't you see them thanking God that they're over forty-one."** From this quotations, the author is mimicking the Generals/Commanders & the Elderly, saying they're too old to fight, by calling them all cowards.

-**"Go and help to swell the names in the casualty list"** Full of scarcasm, the author tells the soldiers to join the war and make the casualty list bigger.

-**"Better twenty honest years than their dull three score and ten. Lads, you wanted. come and learn to live and die with honest men."** The author is saying it is better to die a Hero than to die a Coward.