The poem An Irishman Airman Foresees His Death by William Butler Yeats is about an airman who sees death at the end of the battle as a form of his destiny. While the airman knows his death is going to come, he does not seem frighten or afraid of what the afterlife holds for him since it is a fate that must be fulfilled. Instead, he embraces the idea for he is detached with the physical world and doesn't have anything to gather from the physical world since it would be wasteful in his opinion.
The poem is sixteen lines long with a lack of adjectives and written in first person, meaning the poem is not written as if someone is looking down upon the person. This first person system works well with the poem since we get to understand the psyche of the airman and "how I shall meet my fate"[1]. Using the first person technique, we have a withheld image with the setting of the poem. We do not know where the airman is located, and this withheld image is used to the poem's advantage since the poem is speaking about heading towards a spiritual means, and the spiritual means does not include a physical world we are living in. We understand as readers the importance of the spiritual plane to the speaker as it is written in line two, "Somewhere among the clouds above"[2] and this sets up the tone of the poem of the speaker unconcerned over worldly events or duties without emotion. The rhyme scheme of ababcdcdefefghgh gives the poem more emphasized, along with the lack of adjectives, in the way speaker portrays this destiny towards death and sounds like a marching tone with eight syllables per line.
The eight syllables per line brings this simplified image of the theme of the poem. Even though the form itself is simple, the poem gives attention to the words in making sure one stresses every second syllable in each line, making the lines in an iambic pattern. Since the theme of death is present from the second line of the poem, it is vital to keep the pattern of structure and theme in tune with each other to show the unchanged conscience of the speaker. An image of negative image using alliteration by using the word lonely and loss in the poem brings out the unimportance of his physical existence while the alliteration of the words drove, delight, and death bring a positive image towards death and a spiritual means.
The speaker continuously reinforces the idea of heading towards his destiny towards death by saying he does not fight for those "I do not hate"[3] nor "I do not love"[4]. He is not fighting for "law, nor duty"[5] or "public men, nor cheering crowds"[6]. Since the reason for battle is not for a physical means, the speaker does not look for tangible or worldly recognition. The repetition of "Nor" gives a strong tone to the poem where the reader knows how strongly he is emotionless over worldly events or things and no attachment towards any physical reason for war. The speaker seeks satisfaction from an inner purpose and no physical means can keep him grounded as he rationalizes in this line: "My countrymen's Kiltartan's poor/ No likely end could bring them loss / Or leave them happier than before"[7]. The allusion of "Kiltartan Cross" being used is very important. They were a group of individuals who were a group of Roman Catholics and were related to the Air Force in some way. The poet uses the allusion to farther the reinforcement of this idea of death as destiny in a spiritual sense. One may assume that these people are not well off living in a village using the word "poor" and no battle win nor lost will benefit their means of life. They are a group controlled by another rule over them. In some way, one may see this as they are fighting a battle as representatives of a government, which is richer than them and is solely benefiting the government in fighting this battle. Again, there is this "detachment" towards any worldly tangible items as the speaker does not crave attention from crowd since the countrymen are already a crowd fighting this enemy they care either way about it. The speakers wants to go meet his fate for "A lonely impulse of delight"[8] to balance life and death.
"A waste of breath the years behind"[9] is a metaphor for how he lived in the past and "The years to come seemed waste of breath" is a metaphor for how the future will be. The airman does not look at the past for it is over, and the future is not here to be enjoyed so thinking about it is a "waste of breath"[10] for the present is now. The only time period that matters is the present for death is around (and always could be around) the corner. Since the speaker is an airman, one may picture him in an aircraft and going towards the sky as a way of going to the heavens. The metaphor, "Drove to this tumult"[11] may mean that he reached the height of his life already by fulfilling his destiny as an airman and now ready to die since the present is now and cannot look upon a future that has not been fulfilled yet.
Looking at it historically, the poem shows irony since most people fight in battles (especially during World War I) for the dedication towards their country. In literacy sense, the poem itself is illustrating balance between the worldly and spiritual dimensions using the airman as the speaker. The sky (which airmen often experienced due to their professions) is often related to the heavenly, spiritual dimensions in the psyche, while the ground is related to this world and to what we see daily like laws. The airman sets up a balance in the poem since the airman is going up the air and worldly events do not happen in the sky. The personality of the airman speaking searches for tranquility away from tangible rewards like cheering crowds or duty, which deem to be "a waste of breath"[12] and balance existence like an equation as there is life, there comes death.
The poem gives a sense of balance where the airman has lived and now is destined for death to fulfill a destiny. While one cannot change the past, one cannot look into the future and appreciate it for it has not happened yet. It is "a waste of breath" to change something that has happened or appreciate something that could happen because if death is ultimately a destiny to happen, present is all that matters.
[1] P. 123 line 1
[2] P. 123 line 2
[3] P. 123 line 3/4
[4] P. 123 line 3/4
[5] P. 123 line 5/6
[6] P. 123 line 5/6
[7] P. 123 line 7/8/9
[8] P. 123 9
[9] P. 123 10/11
[10] P. 123 10/11
[11] P. 123 14
[12] P. 123 10/11
