04-09-2014, 05:14 AM
Yes, I understand your confusion, "how can you be two places at once when you're not anywhere at all". The speaker (not to be confused with the writer), did not buy a bullet. The speaker by saying she buys the jacket is saying she is taking away his honor.
It is generally assumed by the writer that the reader will understand one cannot wear a bullet, and thus he is treating the supposed jacket bought from the widow as a metaphor which represents something like the dead soldiers honor, courage, bravery, and in such a way uses this device to represent the devaluing his sacrifice, just as the anti-war people demonized the returning soldiers, i.e., they stripped them of their honor. These first two lines are completely metaphorical.
I bought a full metal jacket, off the widow of a vet,
it had no holes in it, the bullet was in him yet. (also a pun...yet. Mommy, what's a yet? I don't know dear why. Well I was reading the newspaper and it said a woman had been shot and the bullet was in her yet".)
This is an ironic satire. It is assumed that the reader will know when such is metaphor and such is reality. Readers of "Gulliver's Travels", did not say, "What is this, there are neither giants or little people, what is this Swift person going on about?" Nor did Cervantes wish to make it too clear what he was writing about, for in such situations one can lose one's head, literally.
Just so you will know for future references, the bulk of what I write is general some combination of satire and irony, also the voice you hear in the poem is rarely my voice.
Dale
It is generally assumed by the writer that the reader will understand one cannot wear a bullet, and thus he is treating the supposed jacket bought from the widow as a metaphor which represents something like the dead soldiers honor, courage, bravery, and in such a way uses this device to represent the devaluing his sacrifice, just as the anti-war people demonized the returning soldiers, i.e., they stripped them of their honor. These first two lines are completely metaphorical.
I bought a full metal jacket, off the widow of a vet,
it had no holes in it, the bullet was in him yet. (also a pun...yet. Mommy, what's a yet? I don't know dear why. Well I was reading the newspaper and it said a woman had been shot and the bullet was in her yet".)
This is an ironic satire. It is assumed that the reader will know when such is metaphor and such is reality. Readers of "Gulliver's Travels", did not say, "What is this, there are neither giants or little people, what is this Swift person going on about?" Nor did Cervantes wish to make it too clear what he was writing about, for in such situations one can lose one's head, literally.
Just so you will know for future references, the bulk of what I write is general some combination of satire and irony, also the voice you hear in the poem is rarely my voice.
Dale
How long after picking up the brush, the first masterpiece?
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.