Hello friends today we are discuss this question, the question is -How does the poet express the futility of war through his poem ‘Asleep in the Valley’ ? What message does he want to convey ?
In this poem, Rimbaud expresses the meaninglessness of war in a subtle manner. The Dicture of a very young soldier lying peacefully amidst Nature is set in contrast with the destruction caused y warfare. The childlike smile on the soldier’s lips is in juxtaposition with the sufferings that he must have experienced in the battlefield. The mention of the bullet wounds in the concluding line of the poem reveals to the readers the reality behind the horrors of warfare. They realise that the soldier is a casualty of war. All these bring out the futility of war that takes away young lives irrationally.
Arthur Rimbaud through the poem ‘Asleep in the Valley’ presents war as an organised butchery of young lives in the name of the well-being of a nation. He expresses his strong anti-war sentiments. He wants to convey the message that peace should rule the world and not war which causes death of a huge number of people.