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Global Issue- Emotional misery on the soldiers

Devices-
Oxymoron
Paradox
Caesura

Impact on each device -

Oxymoron- "Sweet Pain" this use of oxymoron shows the pain and torture that the soldiers are going through, as they are being far away from their family and how its affecting them during the war

Paradox- it sheds some light on how the soldiers cannot have the things that they want which is very painful for them but have to be away from family, they want everything to go back to how it was before with their families

Caesura- it has been used multiple times in the poetry, in the first stanza "leaving the high, fine air to go down, down." it gives a slight break for further evaluating and also to give the audience a break to analyse it

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Global Issue - Emotional and psychological distress on soldiers

Literary Devices :
Alliteration
Repetition
Oxymoron

Alliteration - 'Dull crude coins clenched' - people would bite coins to see if it was real. 'Clenched' suggests frustration at how receiving money is not worth leaving home. With the alliteration, we can almost hear the coins being clenched. This sharp sound is a constant reminder of the mercenaries' nostalgia. The sound could also link to the clinking of harnesses and climbing equipment.

Repetition - "the wrong taste, stones in the belly; and the wrong sounds, the wrong smells, the wrong light, every breath –wrong."
The repetition reinforces that the decision to move away from home is completely wrong.

Oxymoron - "Sweet Pain" - There will be pain and suffering when you move away from home, but there is also a sweetness in pursuing something you desire, so there are mixed feelings about war which is shown through this oxymoron.

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Trauma due to War/Conflict-

The poem nostalgia discusses how Soldiers/”Mercenaries” suppress their emotions,missing their loved ones and feeling an urge to return home but unable to do so as they are forced to work in conditions even for an extended period of time.

The poem uses oxymoron to emphasise on how Nostalgia affects the “mercenaries” both mentally and physically during war/conflict,for instance,”Hearing tell of it,there were those who stayed put, fearful of a sweet pain in the heart; of how it hurt, in that heavier air, to hear the music of home”,specifically,the conjunction “sweet pain” highlights oxymoron,as both of them are two contradictory words that are juxtaposed in order to give out irony making the reader understand how even the thought of family,or any of the loved ones could make them feel euphoric and compassion which could also could lead to nostalgia,desperate and maybe even regret to not being able to spend time with their dearest.

The poem uses paradox,to bring out empathy and even sympathy within the readers,in the last stanza,”It was Spring when one returned,...and everything changed”,as “one” ,the soldier, finds home

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Global Issue Identified in Nostalgia:
Dehumanization of Servicemen

Devices:
Caesura
Metaphor
Oxymoron

Impact of each device:
Caesura-
There are multiple instances of abrupt pauses throughout the poem. The particular utilization of this effectual device in the first stanza, in which the pauses are intertwined with a detailed description of the soldiers' unwilling departure from their idyllic home environments, delineates the utter disregard for the soldiers' emotive capacity- an intrinsic human facet. This exposes the global issue of dehumanization. The tendency of a human individual to form emotional attachments and forge a variety of abstract feelings (regardless of whether they allow it to be expressed), is assumed to be absent in these soldiers or at the very least, is ignored by those who enforce the reprehensible act of drafting unwilling men into a role that brings them more pain than pride.

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Global issue identified:
mental health of mercenaries during a war.

Devices:
Repitition
Caesura
Paradox

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global issue - how war subverts democracy and promotes tyranny (loss of human lives)

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Global Issue identified in Nostalgia: Trauma caused by war.

Common trauma caused by war is post-traumatic stress disorder(PTSD), severe anxiety. Intense trauma can cause psychosis and other severe psychological problems and these problems can alter a persons genes and can make the future generations more susceptible to psychological disorders, depression, anxiety etc.

Devices:
Hyperbole : "It was killing them."

Impact of each device: Duffy uses hyperbole to show the effect of nostalgia and being isolated and involved in war makes a person feel like the mental ache is killing them and how this can affect a person psychological health.

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Global Issue identified in Nostalgia: Lack of recognition of emotional displacement as a result of psychological stress in soldiers

Devices:
1. Alliteration of 'h' in the second stanza
2. Repetition
3. Caesura

Impact of each device:
1. The alliteration sheds light on the pain and despair that is experienced by the protagonist. The 'h' sound also indicates the desperation, and may be viewed as a call for help.
2. The repetition of the word "wrong" is prominent. It shows how everything felt "wrong" to the mercenaries, because their psychological state was hindered as a result of nostalgia and how it affected their physical wellbeing in the form of the symptoms
3. The abrupt pauses in between lines shed more light on the symptoms, and the symptoms are listed to give a more realistic feel for the audience, to depict the reality of the situation that the soldiers have to experience.

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Global Issue identified in Nostalgia:
Ignoring mental health issues in a group

Devices:
Oxymoron
Repetition
Caesura

Impact of each device:
The use of an oxymoron such as "Sweet Pain" shows the audience the pain the mercenaries are feeling because of them deciding to stay. This relates to the global issue as it hints towards the mercenaries feeling this ''Sweet Pain" in their minds.

The repeated use of the word wrong show's the audience how the mercenaries feel about their current environment and causes the audience to feel sympathy or even empathy. This circles back to the global issue as it shows how the mercenaries feel about everything, and how what they're thinking might actually cause them to experience certain things differently (such as eating food that tastes bad only to them)

The use of a caesura in the first stanza (line 7) shows the audience the final empathetic wrong about how the mercenaries feel. This also relates back to the global issue in a similar way to the repetition of the word wrong. It shows the audience that no matter what the mercenaries are experiencing as long as it isn't home, it is wrong.

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Global Issue identified in Nostalgia:
Emotional effects of war such as depression and anxiety on soldiers psychological well being

Devices:
1) Repetition :  "and the wrong sounds, the wrong smells "
2 ) Alliteration : "heart; of how it hurt,

in that heavier air"

3) Paradox : "the music of home – the sad pipes – summoning,

in the dwindling light of the plains"

Impact of each device:

1)The repetition of "wrong" creates a sense of physically being rejected away from home , this causes emotional effects such as depression . The soldiers cannot get rid of their anxiety and depression due to which they have been suffering from homesickness etc.
2) This repeated sound catches the idea of nostalgia on how much mercenaries have become inflicted , it makes the readers understands that they seem to hold  a heavy weight which they are carrying . Sense of depression and anxiety missing their home  . They feel they are responsible for depression for choosing to come all this way for money and war
3) Paradox is being used here because Duffy focuses on these small moments , those which remain in your memory after they have passed . There is also a sense of a depressing reality this also indicates how harsh the real life is out there

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Global Issue identified in Nostalgia:
- Psychological impacts of was and displacement on soldiers.

Devices:
1) Repetition: "leaving the mountains, leaving the high."
2) Juxtaposition: second stanza.
3) Paradox: Second stanza, line 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Impact of each device:

Repetition is used to emphasise the importance of what they are missing out on. War changes people. There is a certain portrayal of the attributes men must hold. A standard that is being set. Repetition is representing a temptation. One that the soldiers are craving--to go back home.

Juxtaposition in a way supports the impact of repetition. Contrasting the soldiers' lives with civil citizens. Contrasting lives that the soldiers want versus what they are getting. They feel displaced and homesick. The soldiers are not forced into joining the army but in a way they feel the need. Army is considered macho and manly which makes the young men join. It takes away their innocence and exploits it. Contracts are made. It is not a regular 9 to 5 job that they can just resign. There are protocols and legal regulations in place to keep them from leaving the place that they were assigned.

This leads to poor mental health and conditions such as anxiety and maybe even depression. There is a huge psychological impact due to the distancing. Putting them in places and conditions that they are not comfortable in, in the army's defence, that is what they signed up for.

Paradox supports the contrast by shedding light on they things they cannot have. They want to be with their families but cannot. It is a painful thing that they have to go through and Duffy highlights these elements in details in the second stanza. They are longing to return to the past. Soldiers want everything to back to the way it was. All they have from the past are their memories that they keep reminiscing to escape the depressing reality.

The world we currently live in is VUCA which stands for volatile, uncertain, complex and ambitious. The poem brings out the chaos that is there in the real world.

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Global Issue identified in Nostalgia:
- Futility of War
Devices:
1) Alliteration (crude coins clenched in the teeth)
2) Repetition (strange food, the wrong taste,
stones in the belly; and the wrong sounds,
the wrong smells, the wrong light, every breath – wrong)
3) Caesura (every breath – wrong)
Impact of each device:
1) At the time, immoral rulers would make coins from materials of a lesser value than they were actually worth, making the currency of a lesser value than actually stated. To counter this, the working class would bite down on coins to test their sound and therefore its value. The fact that mercenaries were forces to do this shows the degrading pay they received, as most of them were likely there to make money due to their poverty.
2) The repetition of the word 'wrong' emphasizes their discomfort physically and mentally as well as alluding to how wrong and futile war is.
3) The hyphen used after every breath adds dramatics to the end of the phrase and puts more emphasis on how every waking moment in the war was 'wrong'.

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Global Issue identified in Nostalgia: Inability to both understand and tackle mental health issues: The absence of policy or structural framework that helps governments maintain mental wellbeing among soldiers.

Devices and Impact of Each device:

Repetition: "Leaving the mountains, leaving the high fine air to go down, down" The double repetition of the words down and leaving represents the distance between the soldiers and their homes. Particularly the word "down" has an ominous effect, signifying the fear of the unknown among the soldiers. The use of repetition also focuses the reader's attention on both their physical and mental descent, highlighting the decline of their mental conditions and therefore bringing out the global issue as it is the cause of their descent.

Imagery: Imagery used particularly within stanza two clearly describes the soldier's feelings of nostalgia, providing a multi-sensory insight into their psyche and has the effect of acting as a mechanism to impose the feelings of nostalgia among the reader. Therefore, the reader can empathize with the soldier's dire situation and forces them to think about the lack of help given to them, bringing out the global issue.

Alliteration: Alliteration of the letter 'H' in stanza two has the effect of setting a rather pre-determined desperate tone within the poem. It has the effect of bringing the soldiers feelings of "ache" to full force for the reader, and therefore emphasizes their desperation faced due to the inadequate mental health services provided by the governments.

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Global Issue identified in Nostalgia:
Toxic Masculinity
At the time of the poem's writing, the societal norm was that men were expected to be rough and brash, and to some extent, still is, which is what makes this poem so timeless. Society had adapted to a world in which the men were forced into being the "heroic", "strong" and invulnerable characters that everyone could rely on. This not only affected men, but women as well, as they were only portrayed as "damsels in distress", waiting for their knight in shining armour. In reality, it's quite alright for a man to want to be saved or helped, and for a woman to be the one that offers help. This poem tackles the vulnerability that young soldiers of Duffy's time were forced to swallow, the feeling of being unhuman, something that only arises as a result of constantly being expected to not feel negative emotions.
Toxic masculinity is a disease that affects society whose roots come from every corner of it. Women expecting men to do the dirty work in a relationship, society expecting men to be the bread-winners, men themselves hating themselves for feeling vulnerable, etc. The causes are endless, but at the end of the day, the result is simply that men do not feel comfortable opening up or exposing their weaknesses. In the poem, young soldiers suffer from an unnamed "disease", wherein they long for home, or any form of familiarity. Change is natural, but reacting negatively to it is just as natural. This is what is stifled; these men are expected to not feel sadness, let alone this bizarre melancholy and longing for home, so something as baseless as this would obviously have been ignored by a unit as "manly" as the army back in the 17th century. But the longer the feeling lasts, the more it continues to consume them, until it is undeniable. This is where the soldiers find themselves at a crossroads. Do they acknowledge this ache and risk being seen as less of a man, or do they bottle it up and stay in a state of unhappiness?

Devices:
Repetition
Alliteration
Paradox

Impact of each device:
The repetition of the word "wrong" implies that there seems to be something off with everything. This feeling is something that cannot be acknowledged by the soldiers, which adds to this feeling. The repetition of the word

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