Kamikaze by Beatrice Garland: Poem Analysis for GCSE

Kamikaze by Beatrice Garland tells the story of a Japanese fighter pilot who sets out on a one-way suicide mission during the Second World War but turns back before reaching his target, choosing life over the death his culture expected of him. Narrated largely as a daughter's account of her father, passed on to her own children, the poem follows what he sees and remembers on his flight and then the silence his family and community impose on him once he returns home alive.

Studied within the AQA Power and Conflict cluster for GCSE English Literature, the poem rewards close attention to its imagery of the sea and its shift from duty to memory, since exam questions ask students to compare Kamikaze with another poem from the cluster chosen from memory, with no copy of the text available in the exam room.

What is Kamikaze about?

Kamikaze is about a Japanese fighter pilot who sets off on a mission to crash his plane into an enemy ship but turns back before reaching his target. Looking down over the sea, the fishing boats and the shoals of fish, he remembers his childhood with his brothers and his grandfather's boat, and those memories are what lead him to turn round and fly home.

Returning alive brings its own cost. His family and neighbours treat him as though he no longer exists, his wife never speaks to him again in company, and his children learn to be silent, leaving the poem to end by asking which had been the better way to die.

Who wrote Kamikaze and what context matters for the exam?

Kamikaze was written by Beatrice Garland and is studied for the context of kamikaze pilots, the Japanese fighter pilots of the Second World War who were sent on deliberate suicide missions to crash their planes into enemy ships.

Knowing this history shows turning back as a rejection of a national expectation of honour through death, explaining why the pilot and his family are left permanently marked by shame once he returns home. For AO3, this context matters because it shows the power culture and nationalism held over an individual's most private decisions.

What are the key quotations in Kamikaze and what do they show?

The key quotations in Kamikaze move from the pilot's departure on his mission to the lasting silence he faces at home, passing through imagery of duty, nature and memory before closing on an unresolved question.

• "Her father embarked at sunrise": the poem's third-person narrator describing the father's departure on his mission. The formal verb embarked lends the departure a ceremonial, almost naval solemnity, separating the domestic voice of the narrator from the public, duty-bound act her father is about to perform.
• "a flask of water, a samurai sword": the narrator listing what the father carried with him. The list places an ordinary object of survival beside a sword loaded with centuries of samurai tradition, showing personal need sitting inside a much larger cultural expectation of self-sacrifice.
• "dark shoals of fishes": the narrator describing what the father saw from the air. The adjective dark and the collective noun shoals picture nature as dense and alive, contrasting with the solitary, destructive path he has been sent on and beginning the pull back towards life.
• "yes, grandfather's boat": part of the account of the flight, recalling her father's memory of his grandfather's fishing boat. The short, affirmative opening word mimics a sudden flash of recognition, as though the memory arrives complete and undeniable, tipping his thoughts away from the mission and towards family history.
• "he must have wondered": the daughter imagining her father's state of mind as he turns back. The modal verb must signals that this is speculation, not certain knowledge, reminding the reader that the poem is a family's reconstructed, second-hand account of an unspoken decision.
• "which had been the better way to die": spoken by the daughter narrator, ending the poem with an open question. The comparative better refuses to resolve whether death on the mission or a lifetime of social death at home would have been kinder, leaving the reader to weigh honour against survival.
• "my mother never spoke again in his presence": spoken by the daughter narrator, describing her mother's lasting response to her father's return. The absolute never turns silence into a permanent punishment, showing how shame for failing in duty could outlast the war itself and reshape a marriage.
• "we too learned to be silent": spoken by the daughter narrator, describing how she and her siblings responded to their father's disgrace. The verb learned implies silence was taught by example, not chosen freely, showing shame passing through a family without a single word of explanation.

What form and structure does Kamikaze use?

Kamikaze structures itself as a family story passed down, since it is told in the third person as a daughter's account of her father, itself now being told to her own children, so the reader hears the event through at least two generations of retelling. This layered narration explains why so much of the poem reads as reconstruction and speculation built from family memory, particularly around what the pilot himself felt as he turned back, since no one but him could know that moment for certain.

The narrative also moves in a clear chronological arc, from the pilot's departure, through the natural imagery of the sea that prompts his memories, to the long-term social consequences he faces at home, before the poem closes on an open question. That unanswered ending structurally mirrors the poem's refusal to judge whether his choice was right.

What are the main themes in Kamikaze?

The main themes in Kamikaze are duty, honour and shame, the power of culture and nationalism, memory, family and the beauty of nature. Duty and honour sit at the centre of the pilot's situation, since turning back from his mission is read by his own family and community as a shameful failure, not as a survival, showing how deeply nationalism had shaped what counted as an acceptable death.

Memory and nature work together as the force that pulls him back to life, as the sea, the fishing boats and the shoals of fish beneath him recall his childhood with his brothers and his grandfather's boat. Family carries the theme through to its consequences, since it is his wife's silence and his children's learned quietness that show how far the cost of his decision reached beyond himself.

Which poems compare well with Kamikaze?

Kamikaze compares well with Poppies, Remains and The Charge of the Light Brigade, each offering a different angle on conflict for a Paper 2 Section B answer. Poppies gives a family perspective on conflict to set beside Kamikaze, since both poems show the lasting effect of a loved one's choices on those left behind, keeping attention on relationships and aftermath.

Remains pairs well on the aftermath of a choice, comparing a soldier living with what he did with a pilot living with what he did not do. The Charge of the Light Brigade offers the clearest contrast on duty, since it presents a collective, celebrated act of military obedience against Kamikaze's quieter, personal and shamed rejection of that same expectation.

How do you revise Kamikaze for the closed-book exam?

Revising Kamikaze for the exam means learning a small set of quotations well enough to use them from memory, since both AQA papers are closed book and students have no copy of the text in front of them. Choosing six to eight short, memorable phrases, covering the departure, the natural imagery, the memory of the grandfather's boat and the family's silence, gives enough material to support a full range of possible questions without overloading the memory with a whole poem's wording.

In the exam, Kamikaze can appear as the printed poem or as the student's chosen comparison poem in Paper 2 Section B, where one poem is printed on the paper and the student compares it with one other poem from the Power and Conflict cluster chosen from memory. Practising comparison paragraphs between Kamikaze and Poppies, Remains or The Charge of the Light Brigade, focused on a single shared theme such as duty or the aftermath of conflict, builds the skill the 30-mark question tests.

Related guides

• AQA Power and Conflict poems
• Remains poem analysis
• Poppies poem analysis
• AQA GCSE English Literature Paper 2 guide
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