Randall Jarrell's Poetry as Trauma Narrative

Depictions of War in "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"

Mar 13, 2009 Kristie Camacho

Randall Jarrell produced an oeuvre of war poetry that attests to the resiliency of the human spirit and the regenerative powers of the trauma narrative.

Representing the combined effects of historical and personal trauma, Randall Jarrell's poem "The Death of the Ball Turrett Gunner" creates a narrative of the distress and hopelessness attributable to the combat experience. With harsh and realistic imagery, Jarrell's work brings the reader into one individual's attempt to escape an agonizing existence, while simultaneously expressing a desire to survive.

“The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner,” begins with the immediate action and images of birth as he writes, “from my mother’s sleep I fell into the State / And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.” Citing both the physical birth from the mother and a metaphorical gestation within the “belly” of technology, Jarrell begins a discussion of the structural and historical trauma associated with war.

His description of falling from his mother’s sleep indicates a sense of an inevitable fall from grace that has left him at the mercy of government rule. By relating this sense of diminished individual power, Jarrell evokes images of puppetry, as the ball turret gunner becomes a government tool of death and destruction.

Images of Birth

Describing the gunner’s strategic wait within the ball turret, Jarrell recreates the process of fetal growth within the mother. However the metaphorical birth does not hold promises of hope and future happiness. Instead, this man’s birth occurs in a traumatic awakening to “black flak and the nightmare fighters.” With these images of birth and death, Jarrell creates a vision designed to impart with the reader a sense of hopelessness in the endless cycle of life.

Images of Mortality

Jarrell concludes his verse by describing the disembodied observations of the deceased soldier as he realizes, “when I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.” Describing a lack of appropriate memorial and respect for the service this man has provided for his country, Jarrell personifies the detached nature of humanity.

He critiques the lack of government support for military personal, and illustrates the complexities of human existence in a postmodern world. Through Jarrell’s depiction of the gunner’s experience, the reader is brought into an awareness of the shattered identity of the individual who has become both murderer and murdered.

Images of Maternal Authority

In addition to these images of military horror, Jarrell layers his character’s war experience with images of maternal authority. His poem begins with birth as a veritable fall from the protection of the womb, and ends with a washing out that evokes images of “an aborted birth.” With these descriptions, Jarrell creates a life that holds no meaning.

His ball turret gunner has experienced pain from birth and his subsequent death results in nothing more than a washing out of used and now useless material. Similar to Jarrell’s own experience of being removed from paternal/grand paternal care, the reader senses a loss of hope and identity in the gunner’s realization that he is dead.

Poetry as Trauma Narrative

Randall Jarrell’s war elegy utilizes the disturbing and poignant images of violence to illustrate survivor’s detachment and the loss of individual significance. And similar to the disembodied experiences of Jarrell’s ball turret gunner, the reader witnesses the events of trauma and empathizes with the character’s experience. In this manner, Jarrell explores the identity of the individual and suggests that despite the attempted destruction of humanity, individuals will continue to witness and survive the horrors.

Through these images, Jarrell attests to the resiliency of the individual to continue on, despite the atrocities witnessed and committed, as well as the regenerative powers of poetry, to help the writer and the reader confront traumatic issues, and move beyond them towards a functioning, productive future.

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Randall Jarrell