This deep dive covers 🔍 PANIC -- Waking Into Terror (Lines 1-9) within Bayonet Charge (Hughes) for GCSE English Literature. Revise Bayonet Charge (Hughes) in Power and Conflict Poetry for GCSE English Literature with 10 exam-style questions and 15 flashcards. This topic appears regularly enough that it should still be part of a steady revision cycle. It is section 2 of 19 in this topic. Use this deep dive to connect the idea to the wider topic before moving on to questions and flashcards.
🔍 PANIC -- Waking Into Terror (Lines 1-9)
Hughes opens mid-action: "Suddenly he awoke and was running." The adverb "suddenly" and the past continuous "was running" place the reader inside a moment that has already begun -- there is no build-up, no call to arms, no patriotic preparation. Hughes constructs the soldier as already lost in the action before he can think. This is in medias res (beginning in the middle of the action), and it is Hughes's first argument: war does not begin with a decision. It begins with a body already moving.
The soldier's physical state is rendered with visceral precision: he is "lugging a rifle numb as a smashed arm" and stumbling through "raw" air. The simile "numb as a smashed arm" transfers injury from the weapon to the man -- the rifle is not just heavy, it feels like part of a broken body. Hughes positions the soldier's body as already damaged by the very act of running before any bullet has been fired. The verb "lugging" removes any sense of military purpose: this is not a man advancing -- it is a man barely carrying.
Quick Check: Why does Hughes begin the poem with "Suddenly he awoke and was running" rather than describing the start of the charge?
Hughes uses in medias res to strip away the ideological context that sends soldiers into battle. By dropping the reader into a moment already underway, Hughes denies the soldier -- and the reader -- any space for reflection, decision, or patriotic resolve. The poem argues that war reduces men to reflex before thought is possible. The opening enacts this reduction structurally: we are inside the terror before we can frame it.
Practice questions for Bayonet Charge (Hughes)
Hughes opens 'Bayonet Charge' with the line 'Suddenly he awoke and was running.' What is the effect of beginning the poem this way?
Explain how Hughes uses in medias res to create a sense of combat disorientation in 'Bayonet Charge.' [2 marks]