(1) Compare empathy toward violent death in Jarrell’s “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” and “Mail Call” to that of Donald Davidson’s “Ode to the Confederate Dead” and Karl Shapiro’s poem “The Leg” and the hapless battlefield casualties in Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun, Mariano Azuela’s The Underdogs, and Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front.
(2) Analyze Jarrell’s lucid re-creations of the female outlook in “Next Day” and “The Woman at the Washington Zoo.” Contrast his depiction of malaise with that of poets Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath.
(3) In “Next Day,” the female speaker says, “I am exceptional.” Is she? Why or why not?
