Power & Conflict (AQA GCSE English Literature): Exam Questions

It shows that the soldiers trust fate and follow their orders with courage and faith.

It implies the soldiers are trapped in a landscape of confusion and violent noise.

It shows the men’s clear awareness that they are riding toward certain death.

It suggests the soldiers believe their sacrifice will earn forgiveness and peace.

It conveys the rhythmic pounding of the horses and mirrors the relentless march of time, duty, and courage together.

It celebrates how the men’s bravery unites physical courage and disciplined obedience as one unstoppable act of faith.

It echoes a commander’s order and reflects the commanding tone that drives men to action and to death in battle.

It memorialises the soldiers collectively, uniting their bravery and sacrifice in rhythm and remembrance for generations to come.

It presents their obedience as noble and selfless, revealing duty as their guiding purpose and moral strength.

It suggests that the soldiers begin to question their leaders and feel torn by responsibility and fear.

It mocks the blind loyalty of soldiers who obey orders without thinking yet believe themselves heroic and honourable.

It implies that courage replaces reason as emotion and instinct govern their final charge toward doom and death.

It repeats a steady pulse that mirrors marching feet and echoes both order and inevitability through each stanza.

It falters at moments to imply hesitation and fear among men confronting overwhelming firepower and noise.

It drives the pace forward like galloping hooves, conveying unstoppable momentum and fatal urgency.

It slows after each verse to remind the reader of loss, honour and the silence that follows battle and grief.

It heightens the sense of danger as the soldiers are surrounded and yet ride on through fire, smoke and thunderous chaos.

 It portrays the scene as chaotic and disordered, where explosions blur direction and overwhelm reason and courage alike.

It suggests divine punishment for men who obey commands without thought yet continue forward bravely into danger.

It emphasises their entrapment and courage under fire from all directions, magnifying bravery amid destruction.

It softens the scene while sustaining admiration and solemn respect for those who fought and died without complaint.

It hides the cost of war behind grandeur and turns loss into glory while avoiding explicit description of violence

It downplays violence yet implies that sacrifice ensures immortal honour within collective memory and national story.

It reduces the horror of death and elevates the fallen with quiet dignity and noble restraint.

It appeals to citizens to consider courage and grief together, recognising the price of loyalty and patriotism in war.

It calls upon the reader to celebrate and remember the soldiers’ bravery and unity in a shared national act of memory.

It orders the surviving soldiers to repeat the same fearless devotion, treating “honour” as a renewed call to military action.

It warns that such leadership mistakes must never again bring needless loss and national sorrow.

It insists that heroism outweighs leadership mistakes and redeems the brutality of war for patriotic readers.

It claims obedience alone creates glory while ignoring the waste of life and the silence of those who died.

It honours bravery while quietly acknowledging the cost of leadership’s mistake and the limits of obedience.

It condemns patriotism entirely and replaces it with faith, resignation and devotion to divine will.

Both depict soldiers as victims of command, yet Tennyson celebrates absolute obedience while Owen condemns it as betrayal.

Tennyson critiques leaders’ errors through euphemism, whereas Owen blames soldiers’ weakness for their own suffering.

Tennyson celebrates hierarchy and order that are adopted without question, while Owen questions all authority through bitterness and chaos.

Tennyson exposes moral tension between courage and flawed command, while Owen converts that tension into paralysis and protest.

Tennyson fuses men into one rhythmic entity, while Hughes isolates his soldier within broken syntax and disordered thought.

Both portray unity as delusion, rejecting any sense of purpose or comradeship amid chaos, akin to a collective hypnosis.

Tennyson’s plural voice masks the crushing isolation, whereas Hughes’s singular focus re-creates the shared terror of mass warfare.

Tennyson and Hughes alike present identical forms of control, replacing emotion with mechanical precision.

Tennyson elevates heroism through measured rhythm and praise, while Hughes dismantles it through fragmentation and irony.

Both poets glorify war’s excitement, making it somehow thrilling, presenting violence as exhilarating and necessary for meaning.

Tennyson’s use of repetition creates irony, whereas Hughes’s free verse restores the faith in noble courage.

Tennyson frames courage as reckless instinct, while Hughes converts chaos into calm control and clarity.