Homecoming by Bruce Dawe

Looking at the above poem, write a response about what you think Bruce Dawe is trying to suggest
about the reality of the Vietnam War. How does he use his poetic form and features to convey this
message and protest about connected themes?
Think about the entirety of the poem and the variety of techniques he uses rather than simply listing
them. Support with quotations from the poem. At least 300 words minimum

In his poem, Homecoming, Bruce Dawe suggests that the reality of the Vietnam War was that it was a
great tragedy for humanity, specifically Australians. Dawe uses protest poetry to stimulate the readers
empathy regarding the tragedy that was the Vietnam War. The poem follows a narrative voice which
encompasses the return of the dead soldiers. By doing this Dawe is able to express his opinion on how
the war destroyed the lives of many families. He uses personal pronouns such as ‘they’ and ‘them’ to
refer to both the government and the soldiers. This makes it seem that the government was responsible
of the many deaths of these men. It guilts them into thinking that they were the reason of the great
tragedy that occurred. At the beginning of the poem, Dawe refers to how the men are being zipped up
into green plastic bags: “They’re zipping them up into green plastic bags”. The connotations of the
‘bags’ being referred to convey that the men were treated and were seen as rubbish by the Australian
government. They were not being cared for and it seems as if they were only used for the purpose of
political gain. Furthermore, it implies that the soldiers who died were not seen as people rather seen as
dead weight similarly how rubbish is seen. Moreover, Dawe further suggests that the war was a
heartbreak when he states, “the mash, the splendour”. This juxtaposition of two states of life expresses
how splendour is the magnificence of young life while mash is the destruction of it. Young life is
wonderful and marvellous while the mash is destructive to all it comes into contact to. Bruce Dawe
implies that the Vietnam War was destructive to the lives of many Australians as it regarded the
soldiers in an inhumane way.