Authors and poets primarily use literary devices to better understand their own work, but some writers use them effectively while others fail. In "Grenadier ", the poet, AE Housman effectively uses symbolism, meter, rhyme and imagery to emphasize the low cost of human life during war, from the perspective of a dying soldier. This poem follows a common meter that consists of an iambic tetrameter followed by an iambic trimeter It contains five quatrain stanzas, each following an ABAB rhyme scheme. This meter and rhyme are very common in poetry and, as such, convey a sense of community. This commonality helps us to identify more easily with the universal message conveyed by Housman on the futility of war, Housman's deliberate omission of the name of the "young man" further accentuates the idea that this poem is a universal message. . In the first two stanzas, Housman creates the image of a person drafted into the army, and finally. lose one's identity and independence. The first line: “The queen she sent for me” subtly indicates that the soldier has been conscripted, but it does not tell the reader this outright. The reader's surprise when he discovers in the next line that the soldier is enlisted is similar to that of the "young man" who reads his enlistment notice. In the last line of the first stanza, Housman uses symbolism to foreshadow the soldier's impending death. He does this through the skillful use of the number thirteen: “young man, you will be a soldier for thirteen denarii a day.” If a soldier were given "thirteen pence", thirteen being an unlucky number, he would surely die on the battlefield. Thirteen pence is also a very small amount of money, even in the middle of a paper...how he will have to "reduce [his] price even further than a paltry thirteen pence." Thirteen pence is a recurring phrase that resonates with Housman's understanding of the apparent low cost of human life during war. For thirteen pence a young man was forced to give up his identity, for thirteen pence he died in a war, for thirteen pence more young men will die, and when he dies he will lose even that thirteen pence. The poet uses his imagery very effectively and correctly describes the despair felt by a dying soldier, reinforcing this point through the widespread use of symbolisms that help the reader draw their own conclusions. Additionally, the common meter and rhyme system helps us more easily associate the poem with a wider range of people. Housman showed with his rhetorical talent the low price of human life during a war for his poem “Grenadier”.