Randall Jarrell's poem "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" is about the uncontrollable element of faith and the abruptness of life. In five lines Jarrell tells the story of the birthing of a man who falls into the hands of the government and who is made to go to war. The man faces the same fate as many other young men who shared his occupation during the war.
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
The shortness of the poem mirrors the span of a young gunner's life. The gunner is killed and his death has little significance to anyone or anything. "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" introduces several themes and provides great examples of the different literary devices found in poetry.
Jarrell uses informal diction and writes in a conversational style. Structure and punctuation change the meaning of the lines being read individually, as phrases, or as a single unit. The first, second, and fifth lines can be read and interpreted individually. To make sense of the scene, lines three and four should be read as a single unit. Jarrell's word choice throughout the poem is important in creating the atmosphere of the story. Despite their simplicity, his words paint a vivid and disturbing scene. His decision to use "sleep," "fell", "hunched", "belly", and "fur" affects the overall meaning of the poem. "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" is read with natural pauses at key points in the lines. The pauses are located midpoint in the lines often signals the changing of the scenes. This choppiness of the lines contributes to the poem's negative tone.
The two most identifiable motifs in the poem are those of man's existence in the womb and the indifference of war. Further exploring the idea of the womb motif, the poem can be read as a poem about abortion. A fetus, happy and content, in the womb is destroyed and all trace of its existence is removed by a cruel act. The casual nature of the gunner's death can be seen as coldness in destroying the life of an unborn fetus. The fetus is unimportant and its unborn existence is deemed worthless by an indifferent institution.
The poem becomes tragic because like the gunner, the fetus has only had a chance to "dream of life (line 3)."
Taken in its literal reading and exploring the motif of war, the poem is read as being strongly anti-war. Out of his mother's care the gunner is placed in the hands of the "State" and given up to war (line 1). The war is violent and brings death to the gunner. The death goes almost unnoticed and his remains are "washed [...] out the turret with a hose (line 5)." The indifference of war is revealed by this line and is also revealed by Jarrell's decision to end the poem so abruptly.
Line 5 is powerful at presenting perhaps the most important factor in "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner." Another motif is the casualness of which a life is forgotten. The gunner has not had the chance to live before he is killed in war, but he's very existence is "washed (line 5)" away by members of the "State (line 1)." All this is communicated in only one line of the poem.
Looking at the first line as a whole, the reader can envision a definite birth scene. Jarrell begins the poem with a peaceful image of a child in the womb. "From" denotes separation or detachment. "From" is used to communicate the relationship between the baby and his mother. Further contributing to the gentle tone of the poem so far, the word "sleep" demonstrates a softness that Jarrell's audience can identify with and leads to a more pronounced shock when the tone of the poem changes with the word "fell". "Fell" is unpleasant and shows the gunner's helplessness in the action.
The gunner has fallen and the "State" has brought an abruptness to his previous state of contentment. "State" might be identifying the government, the U.S, or the aircraft. Whichever entity "State" identifies, it represents one that is disagreeable to the gunner because it was not one of his choosing and has replaced his previously agreeable position of being in his mother's care.
One motif that has already been identified in the first line and continues into the second line in Jarrell's poem is the womb. The second line is a reference to gunner's existence before birth. "Hunched" in the vessel's belly, the gunner is curled in a position resembling that of a fetus in the womb. Jarrell uses "hunched" to continue with the unpleasantness that he had brought to the poem in the end of the first line. "Hunched" lets the reader know that the space the gunner occupies is crowded and diminutive. In context of the entire poem, the gunner is cramped, small, and unnoticed.
