How Kim Cheng Portrays a Vivid Image of Military Life in 'the Reservist'

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ultimately highlighting the tiresome nature of this tradition. For instance, in stanza two the anaphora of ’the same’, along with the constanence of the long, muted ’m’ sound illuminates the annual uniformity and relentlessness of the dull experience. To further extend this, Cheng places the reservists in a subject position ’ the same trails will find us time and time again’ to express the inevitability of the unchanging tedium, as well as impotence of the men. Another way which Cheng portrays this is within the intertextual allusion of the Greek Myth of Syphilis, suggesting that here the tragic myth has become reality, reflecting the futile repetition of the men year on year. Additionally, the comparison of the reservists to ’children placed on carousels’ forces them into a subordinate, servile position due to its infantile nature, and the image of the ’carousel’ mirrors the everlasting rut that the reservists are to perform each year. This is conjoint with the suggestion of the significant destruction of their day to day lives: ’too ill fitted for life’s other territories’ The modifier ’too’ stresses the absolutist and irreversible damage done to their lives and creates the sense that as a result of this farce, the reserves have merely wasted other fundamental opportunities in their lives. Finally, Cheng also alludes to a sense of underlying hopelessness of a break in this relentless cycle: ’our lives stumbling into open sea, into daybreak’. Although conventionally, daybreak is an emblem of hope and renewal for a possibly better future, giving the ending of this poem an illusion of optimism, there may be a more unsettling subtext. The use of the verb ’stumbling’ connotes an air of uncertainty and the concept of open water may hint at more of an overwhelming, threatening expanse rather than a symbol of greater opportunities. This fundamentally outlines the everlasting effect of this training, and how because of its continuative nature, a life without it seems unnatural and daunting, showing the amount of control it holds over the men’s lives.

Finally, Cheng also uses the structure and form of the poem to reflect the monotonous and the exasperation of the men who are made to partake in military life. The first stanza is particular is constructed of a series of noun phrases, with the use of asyndeton to create heavy, dense sentences which mirror the monotony. It is teeming ith caesura, for instance ’old windmills. With creaking bones’, which serves the slow down the stanza and create a long, drawn out nature. Furthermore, within this stanza, there is an abundance of enjambment, which has the effect of creating the continuance and ongoing atmosphere of the year to year training. This contrasts to the last stanza, which interestingly seems to increase with pace and momentum aided by the extended use of enjambment and also anaphora of the modal verb ’will’ - creating a further sense of inevitability and pace as well as ’onto’ which is not only repeated but also gives a suggestion of movement itself. This may reflect the unrelenting perpetuality of the training, but also allude to the soldier’s willingness for it to be over, to move onto a future of liberty without the burden of military life.

To conclude, this ballad of the satirical mockery of the annual reserve training highlights the ludicrous fabrication of military ideals which in reality, do not reign true. By illuminating the situation with sarcasm and humour, it makes it accessible and relatable to those in this situation, who suffer in this tedium of futile and trivial tradition each year which lightly veils a criticism of the Singaporean government who fail to see the anachronism of such a thing. The resounding deduction if this poem is one of a somewhat unjust absurdity and exasperation, and a n ongoing desire to break this

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