How is the War represented by Jessie Pope within 'Who's for the Game'?

Throwing a ball with your buddy, playing hopscotch with your friends after school, hide and seek with your sister: these are games, ones that anyone would be lucky to partake in. Expecting thousands of men to run into battlefields and die for their country is not a game. In Jessie Pope’s “Who’s for the Game,” war is a game in which men would be lucky to participate in. Less a war; more an event. Pope allows for hundreds of people to interpret war as something brave and fun as opposed to the horrific reality of it: which is cold and traumatizing. “Who’s for the game, the biggest that’s played” (Pope, Who’s For The Game). This quotation alludes to the idea that amongst all of the fun games around the world, this is the ultimate game, one that should be joined and participated in. The idea that the war is a game, and that you would be sitting “in the stand” (Pope, Who’s For The Game?) If you fail to participate, allows for the propaganda to spread and affect hundreds of men, causing them to think that they are sacrificing their masculinity if they do not join the “game.” “Than lie low and be out of the fun?” (Pope, Who’s For The Game). This quotation represents the brainwashing techniques used to essentially trick men into joining the war: this is the same equivalent as stating “If you do not join the war, you will lose out on the fun” which, as we know, was extremely inaccurate at the time, but would not have been seen as inaccurate due to the fact that Pope continuously describes the war as a game. Due to the masculinity struggles going on at the time of the war, many men believed that if they were hesitant to join the war, or believed they should stay behind, they were stripped of their manhood and were no longer brave and protecting of their family or country; this led many men to fall to prey to the propaganda shared, in fear of losing their masculinity, as well as in fear of losing out on the “fun”. “Lie low” (Pope, Who’s For The Game?).Idiom is used in this quotation, as one would not actually lie low, but would stay down, keep their mouths shut, and hide away from the war instead of joining and participating in “the game” (Pope, Who’s For The Game?). Who would want to lie low when they could, instead, have fun in the ultimate game? Use of rhyme scheming is used throughout the poem, and this can be seen through the similar wording used at the end of each line. This can arguably be to persuade the readers through upbeat, familiar rhyming to simulate an upbeat song or happy poem. Alternate rhyme scheming can be seen in lines two and 4: “fight, tight” (Pope, Who’s For The Game?). Personification is additionally used when Pope refers to the country as “her.” “Your country is up to her neck in a fight, and she’s looking and calling for you” (Pope, Who’s For The Game?). Although the country cannot be a female or a male, it is referred to as a female. This could be to cause the men reading to think of their country as a helpless woman in need of their assistance; which would essentially cause them to feel a duty to go fight. In 1915, women were seen as people in need of protection from a man, and so giving the men an idea of their country being in the same shoes as a woman in need, would manipulate them into fighting along with the idea that they would have fun in the game.