Hello friends today we are discuss this question, the question is -“In his side there are two red holes.”-Who is the person referred to here? What do th ‘wo red holes’ signify ? What attitude of the poet to war is reflected here?
The person referred to here is the dead soldier of the poem ‘Asleep in the Valley’ written by Arthur Rimbaud.
The ‘two red holes’ are the marks of bullet wounds, in one side of the apparently sleeping soldier. It signifies that the soldier has been shot to death at war.
The poet here perceives war as something futile and brutal. Rimbaud, being a soldier himself has witnessed the horrors of war, and in this line he expresses how pitiful a war is! War destroys the lives of youths with all their dreams unfulfilled and without letting them experience the joys of life. In warfare, they become the inevitable victims who are mercilessly kill in reality slaughters young sopeace of a nation, war soldiers. This meaninglessness of war perturbs the poet immensely. The concluding line of the poem is an alert to mankind against the ravages of war.