Poetry is an effective vehicle for conveying the composers attitude to distinctive

ideas. An array of techniques interacts to develop an emotive and persuasive

insight to the composers world. Bruce Dawe ideas about the modern world &
especially its impact of the nature of our lives can be seen in Enter Without So
Much as Knocking and Weapons Training.
Bruce Dawes Enter Without As Much As Knocking presents a distinctive
perspective about the impact of the consumers society. The poem presents the
story of a young boy from birth till death. The boys entire life is influenced by the
language of advertising and related attitudes. Dawe has generalised his life in the
poem, even his parents were not spared. With the use of Lexical chain
accumulation and neologism in Anthony Squires-Coolstream-Summerweight
dad, Dawe is able to emphasise on the materialism of things in his life. It focuses
on the materialistic nature of people, even his father is compared to the
consumable product, taking away any personality and individuality of the person;
the father has been reduced to a commodity. It serves to reinforce the idea of
consumerism & portrays the individuals family as consumable materials. The
Advertising jargon is used throughout the poem, from his birth till death. Probity &
Sons, Morticians, demonstrates materialism and consumerism even at death,
showing its dominance over the whole life. The advertising language in this stanza
of the poem highlights that it is the appearance that matters, everything is
superficial, and highlighting the superficial life he lived. At the funeral theyll just
put a healthy tan on the individual ironic to the life he lived, pretentious and
superficial.
A child loses their innocence as a result of living in a harsh world such as ours.
Dawe explores this theme in Enter Without so Much as Knocking.

unadulterated fringe of sky, littered with stars no-one had gone around to
fixing up yet;, the metaphor illustrated the idea that the boy as a young
child is not aware of the selfish and the superficial world of adults. He has
not succumbed to the materialistic world as of yet and is enjoying the natural
beauty of the world. Ive had enough for one night, with that Clare Jessup,
the contrast of the two lines used about or by the child/adult highlights the
innocence that he had in his youth and that he lost in his adulthood. The boy
lives his life turning from a young innocent boy to a superficial materialistic
man.
War is dehumanizing. Regardless of whos involved war has the ability to
dehumanize anyone. Bruce Dawes Weapons Training explores this idea
and gives the responder an insight into what prepares a soldier for a war.
mob of little yellows, the use of racist jargon here is used to dehumanize
the enemies. The instructor is using such language to give men a better
chance to survive the war. By dehumanizing the enemy it makes it easier for

the soldiers to kill them, makes them think it doesn't matter if they die, they
arent even human. You in the back row with the unsightly fat between your
elephant tears, use of zoomorphism by Dawe highlights the
dehumanization of the soldiers by the instructor. The soldiers are dealt with
harshly to toughen them up for the real war that they will be joining.

Weapons Training is a poem in which Bruce Dawe shows the shear brutality
of war, the danger of war that is very real. In the poem Dawe uses an
effective way to convey that message to the responder. you know what you
are? Youre dead, dead, dead, use of repetition at the end of the poem is
used to deliver a very universal and important message; war is deadly.

Dawe was able to effectively use poem to convey his attitudes to distinctive
ideas. Enter Without so Much as Knocking & Weapons Training, both
deliver Dawes ideas to the responder; each time doing so in a way that is
both informative and entertaining.