Intertextuality of The Patriot Poem and Other Works

The Patriot

The Patriot is a dramatic monologue written by the renowned English poet and playwright Robert Browning. He is well known for his dramatic monologues and is widely celebrated as one of the foremost poets of the Victorian era. It was first printed in Men and Women (1855).

AN OLD STORY.

I.

It was roses, roses, all the way,

With myrtle mixed in my path like mad:

The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,

The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,

A year ago on this very day.

II.

The air broke into a mist with bells,

The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries.

Had I said, ``Good folk, mere noise repels---

But give me your sun from yonder skies!''

They had answered, ``And afterward, what else?''

III.

Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun

To give it my loving friends to keep!

Nought man could do, have I left undone:

And you see my harvest, what I reap

This very day, now a year is run.

IV.

There's nobody on the house-tops now---

Just a palsied few at the windows set;

For the best of the sight is, all allow,

At the Shambles' Gate---or, better yet,

By the very scaffold's foot, I trow.

V.

I go in the rain, and, more than needs,

A rope cuts both my wrists behind;

And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,

For they fling, whoever has a mind,

Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.

VI.

Thus I entered, and thus I go!

In triumphs, people have dropped down dead.

``Paid by the world, what dost thou owe

``Me?''---God might question; now instead,

'Tis God shall repay: I am safer so.

The Patriot Movie (2000)

https://www.amazon.com/Patriot-Extended-Cut-Chris-Cooper/dp/B000ELL1S0

            Benjamin Martin, a veteran of the 1754-1760 French and Indian War, is a widower raising his seven children (five sons and two daughters) on his farm in South Carolina. He manages his land with free servants and employs in carpentry, particularly fashioning rocking chairs, though he has little success with it. His eldest son, Gabriel, is keenly interested in the fighting between the American colonies and the British; the Revolutionary War has been waged in other colonies for some time. Being of age, Gabriel enlists in the Continental army without his father's permission. 

            One dqy Colonel William Tavington is given the discovered dispatches and orders the identity of the carrier. Gabriel turns himself in, hoping to spare his family any punishment, but Tavington orders that the wounded Continental troops be killed and the house burned for having harbored the enemy. Benjamin begs lenience but is silenced as Gabriel is led away. Impatient, Thomas runs forward and tries to free Gabriel but is ruthlessly shot by Tavington. Thomas dies in his father's arms as Tavington insults him and rides off.

            He then gives rifles to his older sons, Nathan and Samuel, and tells them to come with him.  They make their way through the forest, arriving on a ridge ahead of the British convoy with the intent to ambush them.  He tells his sons to start by shooting the officers and work their way down through the British ranks and to remember what he taught them about marksmanship.  As the convoy passes, Benjamin and his sons alternate gunfire, creating confusion and chaos in the British ranks. The soldiers are quickly killed off and Benjamin shows ferocious brutality when he takes his tomahawk vengefully to one of the British privates.  Young Samuel goes to bed distraught over the events of the day but Nathan tells his father he was glad to kill the British soldiers.  Benjamin explains to Gabriel that the form of set-piece warfare (opponents directly facing each other and taking turns firing) is barbaric and that this particular battle was over before it began.  Before leaving, he asks permission of Anne's father, Peter Howard.  

            Over the next few months, French officer Jean Villeneuve assists with the training of the militia using guerrilla fighting tactics and they plunder and harass British convoys and supply lines. Then, Benjamin and Gabriel visit Anne's hometown where Gabriel calls on her and spends the night, and upon leaving the next morning. Benjamin tells of how, in retaliation for what the French-led Indians did to the British, he and other men engaged in guerrilla warfare against them, taking fierce revenge, slaughtering men, women and children. It was something that Benjamin regretted for years afterwards because of its brutality. Gabriel assures Benjamin that, while he still wants revenge for what happened to Thomas, it would be best to stay the course and keep fighting on level ground.

            Benjamin and Gabriel arrive some time later, as do Anne's family. Gabriel proposes and the two are married. Benjamin gives Anne his late wife's necklace. Anne and her family return to their hometown after the wedding while Gabriel moves on with his father and the rest of the militia. There, Anne and her family are left to die in the burning church by Tavington's cavalry.

            Arriving in town elsewhere, Benjamin and his men discover that many of the townsfolk have been brutally murdered. John Billings finds his wife and young son dead in the street and, overwhelmed, puts a pistol to his head. Benjamin allows his men to go check on their families with the assurance that, if they do not return to the swamp chapel, they will not be deemed cowards. Gabriel rides with Benjamin to check on Anne and find the town empty and the church destroyed. Benjamin notes the chains on the charred doors and, upon looking through the rubble, finds the star necklace he had given Anne lying in the ashes. Burwell appears behind him and tells him that Gabriel is gone. Taking only a few men with him, Gabriel rides after Tavington's men and catches them off guard as Tavington shaves in a creek. All of the men, British and militia, are killed include with Gabriel. Gabriel apologizes for Thomas before dying in Benjamin's arms.  

            Villeneuve berates Benjamin's resignation and tells him of how he watched as his wife and two daughters were strung up on a ship overrun by British soldiers and burned alive. The Continentals leave Benjamin and continue to their next decisive battle at Cowpens. However, they soon spot Benjamin riding forward to meet them, carrying an American flag; he has promised himself to stay the course as Gabriel once told him. Together, the Continentals and the militia fight against the British at Cowpens and prove to be a formidable force. Then Tavington was killed by Benjamin. 

             General Cornwallis sounds the retreat of his forces and the rebels celebrate. In voiceover, Benjamin tells of how the British were defeated later that year at the Siege of Yorktown in 1781. The French navy finally arrived to blockade the British and Cornwallis was bombarded by both the Continentals and the French, holed up in his mansion. He finally acknowledges defeat and surrenders, saying "Everything will change...everything has changed." Benjamin returns to his family and greets a freed Occum at a site where new homes are to be built, starting with the Martins'.

***

            From the movie we can found the intertextuality. He is an American soldier who is willing to refuse war for the safety of his family members. However, due to circumstances that made it impossible to achieve independence by other means, it was decided that the Americans would still have to face the British. The eldest son of Benjamin decided to join the army to help for the independence of his nation without the permission of his father. He came home injured and when the British soldiers finally reached his yard, he admitted that he had brought news from the leader of his nation, America. As a result of this news, he, Gabriel will be taken and punished which his younger brother, Samuel tries to prevent and he is shot and eventually killed. From there the father then decided to rejoin the army to fight on the battlefield against the British. Until the time he joined, there had been so many victims who had died even in his yard, in his garden, in the river, at achievements. This is in accordance with what is in the poem, namely in the first line It’s a rose, a rose, all the way.

Even so many troops died as a result of the war, the army officials recruited men who were still able to fight to join the war. Until the man who prayed in the church was invited to go to war. Don’t just say they want independence but they are afraid to go to war, a girl said it for the men there.

British soldiers in the film is described as cruel. They even burned down the homes of those who would not surrender and killed those who did not join them. They even hang people from roadside trees. The nation which initially aired was quite peaceful with flags flying on the tops of buildings. The church-spires flamed, such flags they had become a place filled with chaos. The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway. The war has even been going on for a long time. Until the film ends, what is contained in the poem is conveyed well. Patriot is a soldier who also has friends who are also soldiers and family at home. He had lost so many things.

Jenderal Soedirman (2015)

            General Sudirman is an Indonesian film that covers post-independence history. With a background in 1948, this film tells the story of the struggle of General Sudirman who directly led the troops to fight the Dutch Military Aggression II with guerrilla techniques. He who was sick with tuberculosis and was a heavy smoker had to fight in clandestine battlefields. The Dutch attacked with confidence because they had superior and modern weapons than the Indonesian army. They attacked the Yogyakarta area and of course it killed a lot of people in that area. Explosions sounded everywhere, buildings turned to rubble, everything looked chaotic and unsafe. Sudirman is shown to have 7 children (of which 1 is still in his wife's womb). He said goodbye to them while stroking his wife's stomach. There are always sacrifices, in this case away from family, in order to fulfill his duties as a warlord. On his departure Sudirman had invited Soekarno to come with him to stay safe from the Dutch. But Soekarno refused and finally he and Hatta were taken prisoner. Sudirman fought together with the people, while Soekarno-Hatta negotiated with the Dutch. Sudirman considered the negotiations to be the same as seeing the Indonesian army as mere soldiers. Even though the soldiers had the dignity to advance on the battlefield. The furious Dutch tried desperately to find Sudirman, but in the end they were overwhelmed. Thanks to popular support, Sudirman's guerrilla tactics and negotiations with the Dutch paid off. However, this success is still due to General Sudirman's leadership and tactics.

            Both the Patriot film and the General Sudirman film, both share stories about the history of their respective nations. The Patriot figure in both is a father with many children. Benjamin Martin is a widower, while Sudirman still has a wife who is pregnant with their 7th child. The main character in The Patriot film wants the independence process to be carried out peacefully so that there are no casualties. Meanwhile, in an effort to defend Indonesia's independence from Dutch attacks, Sudirman chose to go to war because if it was carried out in a peaceful manner there would be the possibility of the Dutch attacking Indonesia again. Although in the end, in both films there is still war and negotiation.

            We go into the most prominent thing that is the resemblance of these two films is the tactics of guerrilla warfare. It was this tactic that made Martin & Sudirman's troops succeed in achieving their goals. Behind the success they achieved, many things had to be sacrificed. They both have to lose the people closest to them. Martin had to lose 2 sons, son-in-law and his fellow troops. Meanwhile Sudirman had to lose his fellow troops.

            In addition to the setting of time and place, the two films are also different in terms of the will of the main character. Initially Martin wanted to take the path of peace so that there would be no more victims. But because of circumstances that made his heart scream at the loss of his son, he decided to go to war. At the beginning of the war against the British, he used guerrilla tactics. But at the end of the war, he fought openly with a new strategy. Meanwhile Sudirman from the beginning did not agree on the path of peace (negotiation) because there was a possibility that the Dutch would attack Indonesia again. He directly led the troops to guerrilla against the Dutch for up to 7 months.

            The theme of patriots with the background of fighting for the nation's independence becomes a must-watch work to remind us of the struggle of the heroes for independence. The three works that have been discussed above create a special impression that is touching and at the same time rekindles the spirit of love for the homeland and defending the country, especially in the current era where many people have forgotten about national values. 

By Dewi Rahayu Mutiarasari/23030200011 TBI 4A