Who's For The Game is one of Pope's more controversial poems when seen in retrospect, because in it she seems to minimize the war itself, likening it to a big game of strategy rather than a life and death (more usually death) conflict from which young soldiers were extremely unlikely to return alive. It is also a poem that seems to goad young men into joining up, by asking which of them want to help the country, save the world, shoulder their responsibility, and which of them want to sit and watch their courageous countrymen do it from the comfort of their home. The men who "turn themselves into the show" that she praises are the soldiers doing their duty, whilst the men "sitting in the stands" are the spectators The tone of the poem implies that it is not acceptable to be a spectator when the future of the world and the nation is at stake. Which of them knows this is a difficult task but wants to take part anyway, and which of them is frightened by the challenge.
War Girls is one of the first poems that highlights the work done by women in the war. Each of the girls the poet describes are doing a job that has traditionally been done by a man; ticket collectors, elevator operators, milkmen - all of these roles have belonged to men. Women have been largely confined to the home, and Pope sees this as confinement, stating that now they are able to get out into the workforce they are no longer "caged" and "penned up". The poem also explains that although the war is about the men in uniform on the front line, the women are donning different uniforms to keep everything in the country going in the men's absence. It is a poem about suffrage and strength.
No! This poem reads almost like a song, or a motivational chant that a group of military personnel would sing during training. It's basic message is that the front lines are atrocious places to be, but in typical English bulldog fashion,the men are resolute and undeterred. They do not become frightened when they see their comrades killed. "Some will stand and some will fall" tells us that not everyone who goes to war will come back, but this knowledge should not prevent others from joining the war effort. There are no allied soldiers who lack courage, from the youngest inexperienced teen recruit to the strategizing general - they are all equal in their courage and resolve. This poem also offers an insight into the way the British viewed themselves, as having more courage and a stiff-upper-lip kind of grit that no other nation possessed.
