The Speaker

The speaker of "In Flanders Fields" is an unnamed representative of all the soldiers who died on the battleground in France and Belgium during World War I. The speaker is communal, using first-person plural pronouns "we" and "our" throughout the poem. That the speaker is not an individual, but a body of people, reinforces the poem's investment in portraying the bleak reality of war as a sight of mass casualties. However, the communal speaker also suggests union and patriotism in the way the "dead" all speak together.

The Reader

In the final stanza of the poem, the speaker addresses the reader directly. He encourages the reader to continue the war effort that he and his fellow soldiers were fighting for when they died in battle. Because of this blunt direct address, "In Flanders Fields" is usually read as a poem meant to stir patriotism in its audience...