In Flanders Fields

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1915

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

The Poppies

The poppies serve as the poem’s most important symbol. The poem opens by drawing attention to the presence of the poppies in the cemetery, describing how “In Flanders fields the poppies blow / Between the crosses, row on row” (Lines 1-2). The poppies function symbolically in more ways than one. First, their blood-red color alludes to the blood of the fallen, who have died violently in battle. Second, the poppies both mark and beautify the graves, creating a contrast between the beauty of the natural world and the violent deaths resulting from human warfare. Finally, the poppies serve as a symbol of renewal and remembrance: The soldiers narrating the poem warn the living that unless the living continue their fight, they “shall not sleep, though poppies grow / In Flanders fields” (Lines 14-15). In closing the poem with the same poppy-centered imagery with which it opened, the narrators transform the poppy from a feature of the natural landscape into a symbol of remembrance, promise, and cyclical duty between the living and the dead. It should be noted that the symbolism of the poppies in this poem has since taken on real-world significance—thanks to the fame of McCrae’s poem, the poppy is now the symbol worn every Remembrance Day in English-speaking countries to commemorate the veterans of the World Wars (See: Background).

Flanders Fields

The “Flanders Fields” of the poem’s title serves as both symbol and setting within the poem itself (See: Literary Devices). As a symbol, the fields represent both the contrast between the natural world and the violence of warfare, while also serving as a symbol of remembrance. The speakers depict the fields as a tranquil place, one in which “poppies blow / Between the crosses, row on row” (Lines 1-2) and where “larks, still bravely singing, fly” (Line 4) despite the sounds of “guns” firing below in nearby battles (Line 5). The beauty of the fields contrasts with the tragic nature of the soldiers’ deaths, which were premature and violent. The fields, as both natural space and newly made cemetery, symbolize the twin cycles of life and death and destruction and renewal. While war has ended the lives of the poem’s speakers, the fields stand as a living memorial to their sacrifice. It is both the home of the dead and the birthplace of a new generative life and legacy.

The Torch

In the poem’s final stanza, the speakers mention a “torch” (Line 12) which they wish to pass along to their audience, the living: “To you from failing hands we throw / The torch; be yours to hold it high” (Lines 11-12, emphasis added). The torch is a symbol of the cause for which the soldiers fought and died. In urging the living to both catch the torch the speakers now “throw” to them and to “hold it high,” the speakers are asking the living to “Take up [their] quarrel with the foe” (Line 10) by continuing to fight. In passing along the torch, the dead are creating a direct link between themselves and the living, while also suggesting that the living are obliged to not only remember the dead but to actively take up the cause themselves and finish the fight and the story that they themselves did not live to complete.