However, when all dignity and values seem lost, signs of their former selves can, and do return. During the war, the men are forced to face many dehumanising situations, and this challenges their dignity and morals. The soldiers were expected to live in the most degrading of conditions in their muddy, lice
The repetition of question marks and dashes illustrate the confusion and frustration witnessing Owens fellow comrades, it is a demanding tone begging for explanation for the entrapment of victims. And as a result, it encourages the reader to consider the impact the war had on both, the soldiers who survived, and those who didn’t. Dulce et Decorum Est brings to reality that war is not what people say it is. Given by its very title, ‘It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country’. Although, it only an illusion reinforced throughout the poem, along with its irony and sarcasm that is ‘The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori’, it is not sweet and fitting to die for ones country.
From what you have read in chapter 4, how would you describe Amir? Amir is a complicated character whom can be either loved or hated by the reader at the same time. The reader feels sorry for Amir because he is longing for attention from his father, whom is not interested in his son's qualifications, but hates him for his treatment towards his best friend Hassan, whom is a loyal and faithful friend with unwavering attitude for him. In this novel, Amir faces with different situations and difficult decisions which make him act different for each one. He always feels guilty because of his violent birth, in which his mother died.
He was upset about his father “John watched and listened, hating him.”(43) He was disgusted about Gabriel for his hypocrisy “No one, none of the saints…. his life was anything but spotless” (53) Because of his grudge against his father John wanted to take revenge “Nevertheless, this man, God’s minister,…………and wanted to kill him still.”(53) He was frustrated about his father and wanted to give him a hard lesson.
In the first stanza, Owen presents the idea that the personal struggles faced every moment on the front line are extremely underestimated, immeasurably terrifying and “obscene”. It seems more realistic when the story is told from a first person narrative; it allows us, the readers, to imagine what it would feel like if “we” were in the trenches and fighting on the front line. That understanding makes us realise the cruel situation that was, for them, an everyday occurrence from which they had no escape. The determination of the soldiers that they “limped on” even when they were “asleep”, “had lost their boots”, were “lame”, “blind”, “drunk with fatigue” and “deaf” to their “distant rest” makes it almost seem as if they were unbreakable; their defiance against anything thrown in their path was god-like and shows an unwavering sense of honour, as they “marched” and “cursed through”, for the fate of all those left at home. The distant rest could represent the end of the war, so far out of their sight, or the release of an untimely death.
Here the descriptors “blind” and “deaf” – conditions that affect them “all” – are particularly apt; it is as if their mental faculties have been entirely dulled by a sordid routine of “coughing”, “fatigue” and the abrupt interjections of “Five-nines” dropping a knell of death behind them. The soldiers’ apathetic reaction of ‘turning away’ and refraining from any engagement with their surroundings ultimately depicts a subversion of a more natural vigor of perspective that embodies the prime of youth. Instead, the psyche of the individual within war is pre-occupied with the corporeal misery of ‘cursing’ through the sludge of their battleground. The deplorable state of the mind is further established within the strained call of “GAS!” in the second stanza of the poem. For the first time in the poem we see a glimmer of tense and frantic activity – an “ecstasy of fumbling” for the gas masks – as the jarring descriptor “ecstasy” establishes a sense of the trance-like state that dominates their conscious actions.
It quivers a little with each kick.”P145 chapter 9. This shows how the enemy is treated even once they are killed. The soldiers probably did this out of rage and a need for revenge. This results in the men dehumanizing one other less proving the point that this novel examples that war changes people. Today we regret the actions that we made in war and so do other countries involved.
Through this detailed description, Gurganus adds to his argument, making the war sound even more horrific. He is trying to get people to see his perspective, and to make all the glory of war seem meaningless. We send these men over to live in terrible conditions and they don’t even know why they are there
Owen compares soldiers fighting in war to sick old men because it shows that soldiers are like outcasts from society. At the top left of the poster, the image shown represents the difficulty and the terrible physical outcomes, soldiers found travelling on ground particularly in sludges as Wilfred Owen states in the first stanza: “Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge” The use of the word Knock-kneed is alliteration for emphasis, a hard, staccato sound to echo the harsh mood of these lines and soldier’s misery. It stresses echo the brutality of the soldiers’ destruction, their transformation from healthy young men into ‘beggars’ and ‘hags’. The use of the word coughing compares men to sick women, showing how they are unrecognisable; they have lost their masculinity, youth, health and therefore are now deemed to be outcast’s within the society. The word sludge is onomatopoeia to imply how heavy and difficult the ground is to cross for soldiers.
It tells us about the destruction and chaos left in the wake. It tells us about the oft-repeated predicaments of soldiers obliged to follow the orders of the under-qualified, or those that they may not agree with. It tells us the motivations of war to preserve an ideal. The poem also describes the expanding gap between civilian life and the hell of the front lines. It tells us of the brotherhood between young men and women who fight not for their leader, but for each other.