During Jessie Pope’s “Who’s for the Game?” the speaker reveals the use of propaganda during World War I to encourage young men to join the war. The propaganda used by governments during the war was manipulative for the governments to enlist more men. The speaker uses sports dialect to enhance the propaganda by comparing war to a sports game to appeal to the lower classes. The speaker also focuses on how this propaganda appealed to their masculinity and to how women would look at them. Thus, by appealing to young men’s desire for women, they could be exploited for the war. Pope's composition of the use of propaganda during World War I exposes the strategic manipulation of young men and their passion for sports, women and grit to encourage them …show more content…
At the beginning of the poem, the speaker begins to discuss the war as a momentous opportunity, “Who’s for the game, the biggest that’s played” (Pope, 1). Here, war is compared to an activity used to distract the working class. Comparing the battles to a game, such as rugby, the government can enlist those “Who’ll grip and tackle the job unafraid” (Pope, 3). By using terms with the connotation of athletics, the middle classes’ focus on sports was directed toward the war. The speaker was also able to draw connections between the beginning of sports, such as track and field, as well as the signaling of the beginning of an artillery barrage, “Who’ll toe the line for the signal to ‘Go!’?” (Pope 5). The signal referred to in both the artillery barrage as well as is the first shot of a gun in track and field; this shot signals the beginning of a charge. For the manipulative use of propaganda, Pope could show the appeal of as well as the idea that war was like sports to encourage the working class citizens to join the …show more content…
The speaker shows how the participation in the war was used to convince men that women would desire them more and would begin “looking and calling for [them]” (Pope, 17). The participation in war appeals to the idea of being a prince saving a damsel in distress. By going to war men could protect women patiently waiting in at home. Women waiting at home for chivalrous men to save them and protect them from the enemy, allowed propaganda to sell the idea that women would be yearning for them once they have signed up for the war. During World War I, men could appear brave to women by not being one “who wants a seat in the stand” (Pope, 8). By sitting back and allowing other men to go and fight for their country, they became spectators and cowards to the women around them. Defending their nation, men could advance women and “come on all right” (Pope, 14). By alluring to the idea that men have an easier time getting women by going to war, both the speaker and recruiters during the first World War use this propaganda to enlist men for the war. By manipulating a young man’s desire for women, the speaker reveals the government's use of this propaganda to enlist young