The Gift in Wartime

Main Summary of the Gift in Wartime
The Gift in Wartime is a heart touching poem composed by Vietnamese poetess Tran Mong
Tu. This poem presents a clear vision of suffering and loss due to war. Here, the speaker
is a widow who presents her painful feelings of her lonely life. She wants to convey the
message that war never provides happiness .it only provides gift of pain and sorrow.
In the first stanza, the speaker is offering roses to be buried in a new grave of her
husband who recently died in the war. She also offers her wedding gown to cover the
tomb which is still green with grass. Here, the speaker expresses her deep love and her
feelings for her husband.
In the second stanza, she talks about her husband’s bravery for which her husband was
awarded with medals. The silver stars and yellow pips on the badge are still shining
with the pride of his bravery. But now these awards are of no use and it is meaningless
to the speaker with his death.
In the third stanza, the speaker recalls her youth days when she was in deep love. The
bad news of her husband's death ended her youth and her love life at her young age. In
the fourth stanza describes the war zone where many soldiers died. The uniform of war
only provides the speaker with smell of blood in return. Hence, War only brings a bad
result for humans. It brings sorrow, pain, suffering, death etc for all the people who take
part in war
In the fifth stanza, the speaker presents her grief. She tells that her springtime of life has
become cold. Her eyes are filled with tears as like the clouds in summer. Only cold winter
prevails in her life. In the sixth stanza, the speaker explains as her husband is dead she finds
his lips without a smile, arms without tenderness, eyes without sight, and his body without
motion.
In the final stanza, the speaker tires to console her as she promises to meet him again in
their next life .she would keep the shrapnel with her to make her husband recognize her in
the next life.
Understanding the text
Answer the following questions.
a. Who is the speaker addressing and why can that person not hear or understand
what she is saying?
Answer: The speaker is addressing her husband. He cannot hear or understand what she is
saying because he is dead.
b. What can you infer about the speaker’s feelings for the person addressed as
“you”?
Answer: Her feelings for that person she addresses as “you” is full of love, affection and
devotion. She has gifted him all the pleasures of life. She is saddened by his demise.
Although he is no more in the world, she is still hopeful to meet him in their next life.
c. What is the speaker’s attitude toward war?
Answer: The speaker has bitter attitude towards war as she has lost her husband.
d. In what ways do you think this person’s fate has affected the speaker?
Answer: This person’s fate was to die in war because he was a soldier. The speaker’s
happiness and youth ended with his death. Thus, the ill-fate of the person has made her
helpless, loveless and miserable.
e. What does the speaker promise at the end of the poem? Why do you think the
speaker does this?
Answer: At the end of the poem, the speaker promises to meet her lovable person in their
next life. She wants to take shrapnel as a proof to show him the reason behind his death
and their separation. I think the speaker does this because of her love for the absent person
is so deep and she wants to be in love with him again and again.
f. Which figurative language is used in the poem? Explain with examples.
Answer: Figurative language is phrasing that the goes beyond the literal meaning of words
to get a message. We find the use of irony, apostrophe, anaphora, and metaphor as the
figurative language here in this poem.
Irony takes place when the poet talks about the gift which is not a real gift but of grief and
loss. A grave and shrapnel as tokens of remembrance are the examples of it.
The poet uses imagery when roses are offered in her beloved’s grave, and her husband is
described as a corpse with lips with no smile and eyes with no sight. The red roses
traditionally symbolize love.
The next figure of speech is anaphora, which is the repetition of the same words at the
beginning of a line. In the first, third and fifth stanzas, the poet repeats “I offer you” and
coming to the sixth stanza where the speaker repeats “you give me” three times in a row.
These are the examples of anaphora used in this poem.
The poem also utilizes the apostrophe literary technique that is addressed directly to a non-
present person or an inanimate object. Like in the poem, the speaker confronts the dead
corpse of her spouse.
g. What is the theme of the poem?
Answer: The theme of the poem is the cruelty and inhumanity of the war and its negative
impacts over humans. The poem talks about the tragedy caused by war. One life ends but
many others are affected. After the untimely death of the soldier, his family and dear ones
will suffer. Life is priceless, so there is no compensation for this great loss.
At.

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Main Summary of the Gift in Wartime

Understanding the text

Answer the following questions.

c. What is the speaker’s attitude toward war?

f. Which figurative language is used in the poem? Explain with examples.

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