Ted Hughes: Six Young Men
What it is about
A photograph of six young men who
have died in the Great War is found by
the speaker. The poem is an account of
the thoughts and feelings about the
brevity of human life that are induced
in the speaker by such a discovery.
The poets role
As observer of the photograph. This,
however, is not a war poem. The
photograph is almost a memento mori, a
reminder that we shall die. We are
exposed to this inescapable horror, just as
the six young men were and as is the
speaker of the poem.
The relationships in the poem
Between the speaker and the six young
men the manners of their deaths are
known to the speaker.
2002 www.teachit.co.uk
How the poet describes what happens
Imagery of photography and photographic techniques is used throughout the poem. The key single image is the photograph,
which seemingly captures life in a frozen moment, but this is an illusion, as they and we shall die. Language blunt, simple,
often monosyllabic, illustrated by the title the men are simply that; six young men. Hughes creates a picture of them as
typical young lads on an outing together; the descriptions are given added poignancy by the final statement. The sorrow of
their deaths is conveyed simply; they were young, they were friends, there were six of them and their lives were brief six
months after, they were all dead. The stanza ends (as do all of the others) with an abrupt, shocking statement. The
repetition of six hammers home this fact.
The second stanza illustrates the key idea of permanence and impermanence that runs throughout the poem. The speaker
knows the photographs setting well, I know that bilberried bank, that thick tree, that black wall,/ Which are there yet and not
changed. (Hughes frequently used technique of alliterative plosive consonants draws our attention to this simply described
background.) Forty years have passed, but nature remains untouched by time. Hughes contrasts human life and nature here,
emphasising the key concept of the brevity of human life compared with the landscape, the valley has not changed its sound.
Human life seems to have no impact on nature.
The third stanza returns to the technique of listing used in the first, this time to tell about the ways in which the men died in
war. Again, the language is simple and blunt, but in a very few words, Hughes humanises the men by describing the intimate
details of their deaths. There is no story-book heroism here, in fact one of the deaths is rather silly, even mundane, the very
moment he was warned/ From potting at tin-cans in no mans land,/ Fell back dead. The description is even more touching
for its bare, unvarnished truth. Smile is repeated throughout the poem as a key motif. Its first use establishes a relationship
between the speaker, the young men and the reader, as they smile at us from the confines of the photograph. Its subsequent
use is a reminder of death and decay, again it is strongly focused on the notions of change and impermanence.
The tone changes dramatically in the final stanza, although it has been building up to this terrible self-revelation. The speaker
seems suddenly overwhelmed by the thought of the inevitability of human death, particularly his own. The imagery of
photography ends the poem, the contradictory permanent horrors of the photograph might almost dement, send one mad.
There is a set of exposures in the poem, the young men were exposed to the photograph, then to the war, their bodies exposed
to decay, the speaker (and through him, the reader) exposed to the knowledge of his own death and non-existence. We are left
with a fearful image, that one day all that will be left of us will be an image, smiling from a photograph.
Six Young Men copyright Ted Hughes
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