The Call by Jessie Pope (AQA A-Level English Literature A): Revision Notes
The Call by Jessie Pope
Introduction to the poem
The Call by Jessie Pope was published in the Daily Mail on 26 November 1914 during Britain's widespread voluntary enlistment campaign following Field Marshal Kitchener's famous 'Your Country Needs You' posters. This poem represents a prime example of jingoistic propaganda designed to encourage young men to join the war effort.
Pope was a journalist and poet who produced three wartime poetry collections: Jessie Pope's War Poems (1915), More War Poems (1915), and Simple Rhymes for Stirring Times (1916). Her work specifically targeted young men (referred to as 'laddies') using cheerful recruitment rhetoric before conscription was introduced in 1916.
The poem reached over a million readers through the Daily Mail's wide circulation, making it one of the most widely disseminated pieces of recruitment propaganda during the early war period.
Interestingly, Pope's work was later vilified by soldiers who experienced the war's brutal reality. Both Siegfried Sassoon in 'They' and Wilfred Owen in his dedication of 'Dulce et Decorum Est' criticised her as 'My friend', highlighting how her propagandist poetry contrasted sharply with the later disillusionment expressed by combat poets.
The poem appears in Scars Upon My Heart to reveal women's varied roles in the war, particularly their involvement in recruitment propaganda. This anthology positioning deliberately exposes the dangerous gap between home front enthusiasm and battlefield reality.
Historical and biographical context
Jessie Pope was a childless spinster who supported women's suffrage whilst simultaneously writing pro-war verse for profit and patriotic purposes. Writing from London's home front during 1914's 'khaki fever' period, she contributed to the atmosphere that saw 750,000 men volunteer before the harsh realities of the Somme and Passchendaele battles (1916-17) exposed the true horror of trench warfare.
Her colloquial writing style echoed music hall songs and posters that shamed 'shirkers' by giving them white feathers, aligning with Lord Derby's recruitment schemes.
The Devastating Consequences
After the war, Pope expressed regret for her work, but her poetry had already fuelled the Pals Battalions' slaughter—groups of friends who enlisted together and often died together. Her cheerful recruitment verses contributed directly to the mass casualties of young men who believed war would be an adventure.
In Catherine Reilly's anthology, The Call anchors the early war fervour section, contrasting sharply with later elegies. This positioning highlights important gender dynamics: women acting as recruiters whilst being excluded from combat itself, inserting themselves into male war discourse from the home front.
Themes
Patriotism as masculine adventure and duty
Pope transforms war into an exciting game, describing it as 'the biggest that's played'—a 'red crashing game' where men 'charge and shoot'. The poem glorifies combat as a boyish sport rather than a life-threatening ordeal. Enlistees are portrayed as swelling 'the victor's ranks' amid 'banners and rolling drums', creating a celebratory atmosphere of imperial triumph.
The rhetorical pressure frames military service as earning 'Empire's thanks', binding individual glory to Britain's imperial power. Combat is presented as led by heroic figures like 'French' (Sir John French, Commander of the British Expeditionary Force), suggesting that enlisting means joining a noble cause under distinguished leadership.
This theme deliberately masks the reality of mechanised warfare, presenting battle as traditional heroism rather than industrial slaughter.
Shame and cowardice for non-enlistment
The poem employs aggressive binary opposition to pressure young men, creating only two options: enlistment or cowardice. Pope asks directly, 'who wants to save his skin—/ Do you, my laddie?' and 'who'd rather wait a bit—/ Would you, my laddie?' These rhetorical questions equate any hesitation with weakness and selfishness.
No Room for Conscience
There is no acknowledgement of legitimate moral qualms or personal circumstances. Instead, inaction is branded as inherently selfish through peer pressure tactics. The phrase 'bite his thumbs' references an insulting gesture, suggesting that refusing to enlist makes young men targets of scorn from their peers.
The poet deliberately pressures youth through the threat of social shame, manipulating them via community expectations rather than rational argument.
Enthusiasm over horror
Pope deliberately uses euphemistic language to sanitise the trenches as a fitness challenge. Phrases like 'fretting to begin', 'keen on getting fit', and 'show his grit' present warfare as an opportunity to demonstrate physical prowess rather than risk death.
This carefully constructed optimism omits any reference to gas attacks, mud, disease, or the mass casualties that defined trench warfare. The poem maintains the naive optimism of late 1914, written before the failures at Neuve Chapelle in 1915 shattered public illusions about a quick, glorious victory.
By deliberately concealing the horror, Pope perpetuates dangerous myths that would cost thousands of young lives. The absence of any reference to death, injury, or suffering creates a fundamentally dishonest representation of military service.
Gendered encouragement from home front
Pope adopts a maternal 'my laddie' persona throughout the poem, positioning herself as a nurturing yet demanding mother figure urging her sons toward military service. This reflects women's auxiliary role during the war—supporting recruitment through white feather campaigns and fundraising whilst remaining excluded from combat.
However, Pope's poem also demonstrates how women inserted female agency into enlistment discourse, actively shaping public opinion despite their exclusion from military service. The maternal voice carries particular emotional weight, suggesting that true sons would honour their mothers by enlisting.
This gendered dynamic reveals complex power structures on the home front. Women could not fight, but they could—and did—use their social influence to pressure men into enlisting, creating a paradoxical situation where the excluded became active recruiters.
Literary techniques
Structure and form
The poem consists of three seven-line stanzas written in trochaic tetrameter, creating a distinctive marching rhythm that echoes military drumbeats.
Poetic Rhythm in Action
The opening line, 'Who's for the trench— / Are you, my laddie?', exemplifies this stressed-unstressed pattern:
WHO'S for the TRENCH — / Are YOU, my LADdie?
This creates a propulsive, insistent rhythm that mimics the sound of marching feet and military drums, subconsciously reinforcing military imagery.
The rhyme scheme (AABCCCB) contributes to the sense of momentum, particularly through the repetition of the opening questions across stanzas. This creates a crescendo effect, building pressure on the reader. The final stanza's procession imagery evokes a victory parade, suggesting that enlistment leads inevitably to triumphant celebration rather than casualty lists.
Imagery and sensory language
Celebratory visual imagery dominates the poem. References to 'khaki suit', 'charge and shoot', 'banners and rolling drums' create a spectacle—war as an imperial pageant rather than brutal combat. The auditory image of 'rolling drums' particularly emphasises triumph and ceremony.
What the Imagery Conceals
Significantly, there is no gore, no mud, no depiction of wounds or death. War appears as a colourful, exciting visual spectacle designed to attract young recruits. This selective imagery deliberately misleads by presenting only the ceremonial aspects of military life whilst omitting the reality of industrialised killing.
Sound devices and rhythm
The trochaic stress pattern ('WHO'S for the TRENCH') mimics the sound of drumbeats and military marches, creating subconscious associations with military discipline and collective action. Anaphora—the repetition of 'Who's', 'Who'll', and 'Who longs'—hammers home the insistence, whilst rhyme ('laddie/begin/win/skin') creates playful, musical chimes.
Alliteration in phrases like 'fretting... fretting' and 'swell... victor's' adds energy to the verse. These sound patterns make the poem memorable and catchy, like a music-hall song, which would have aided its propagandist purpose by making the message stick in readers' minds.
Figurative language
Extended metaphors recast war as sport throughout the poem. References to 'grip and tackle' (from 'Who's for the Game?') and the parade imagery transform military service into familiar, non-threatening activities.
Binary Opposition as Manipulation
Pope uses rhetorical questions as implied answers, employing binary antithesis to simplify complex moral choices:
- Win vs. save skin
- Show grit vs. wait
- Enlist vs. be shamed
These false dichotomies eliminate any middle ground, forcing readers into a simplistic either/or framework that denies the complexity of deciding whether to risk one's life.
The poem personifies the Empire's gratitude whilst using these figurative devices to make enlistment seem like an obvious, even exciting choice rather than a potentially fatal decision.
Tone and diction
The poem's tone is breezy and colloquially enthusiastic. The repeated address 'laddie' creates false intimacy, positioning Pope as a friendly encourager rather than a propagandist. Phrases like 'fretting to begin' and 'keen on getting fit' employ music-hall banter language that would have been familiar and appealing to working-class readers.
However, this cheerful mask conceals coercive tactics. The shift from chiding sarcasm ('bite his thumbs') to triumphant camaraderie represents emotional manipulation designed to pressure young men through social expectation rather than honest representation of military reality.
Key Points to Remember:
- The Call was published in the Daily Mail in November 1914 as recruitment propaganda, reaching over a million readers during the voluntary enlistment period before conscription
- Pope uses game and sport metaphors to present war as exciting adventure rather than acknowledging the brutal reality of trench warfare
- The poem employs shame tactics through rhetorical questions and binary oppositions, offering no space for legitimate moral concerns about enlistment
- Trochaic tetrameter creates a marching rhythm whilst celebratory imagery (banners, drums, parades) masks the absence of any reference to death, injury, or suffering
- The maternal 'my laddie' persona represents gendered home front encouragement, showing how women participated in recruitment whilst being excluded from combat
- Later soldier-poets like Owen and Sassoon explicitly condemned Pope's work, and the poem now serves in Scars Upon My Heart as evidence of early war propaganda's dangerous optimism