Unfortunately one soldier doesn’t get his mask on in time and suffers a horrific death. Owen then describes the nightmares he has after witnessing such an awful sight which leads up to the moral message at the end of the poem. Wilfred Owen uses a number of literary techniques to describe the physical and mental suffering of the soldiers marching back to base. For example imagery is expressed with the use of the simile “like old beggars, under sacks” is effective because it compares the young soldiers to old beggars showing that the war has prematurely aged them and the sacks refer to the heavy bags of equipment they carry on their backs. A similar example would be the simile “coughing like hags” again a reference to being old as a hag is an elderly woman.
It shows us this by comparing the soldiers who should be young and fit to old beggars under sacks. This makes us think of them as haggard dirty and drawn old men hunched over and bent double with exhaustion and pain, finding it extremely difficult to walk. It also reveals to us that even young men who go to war lose part of their youthfulness, due to the terrible sights and circumstances, which is not right. All throughout the first stanza the author uses great adjectives such as knock kneed and similes 'coughing like hags’ to describe the terrible condition and state of exhaustion that these men are in. ‘Knock-kneed’ suggests that the soldier is trying to keep his knees together and his feet wide apart to keep himself steady so that he can continue walking.
Weaam Shawesh Final Assignment Source one is a letter to The Times newspaper written anonymously on November 23, 1916. It tells us about the physical and psychological impact of the war on soldiers on the Western front for more than two years. Physically, the soldiers were worn away, facing more dangerous threats as time passed. Psychologically, their energy and hope was worn out as tragedies built on top of each other day by day. They also suffered from shell shock which could take a lifetime to recover, majorly affecting their abilities.
There is nothing good about war, especially for soldiers, civilians and families. People feel the effects long after the war is over, because of the traumatic experiences. The worst acts of dehumanization during wars are the ill-treatment of the soldiers in World War One, the Holocaust in World War Two and the child soldiers of today. World War One was the deadliest conflict in human history with over 35 million military and civilian casualties. The soldiers bared the worst suffering through their experiences living in the trenches.
This is highlighted with "shut", "bleached" and "dark-clothed". The cleaver use of "shut shops", "sun blinds", "sovereigns", "kings and queens" compounds a critisasation of authority, Larkin does this through sibilance. Larkin then presents the loss in the next stanza with the repetition of the theme of innocence this is highlighted with the quotation "dresses", "never such innocence", "little" and "never such innocence again". This created a sense of destruction and how the war has taken the innocence of so many young people. Also the use off an oxymoron "restless silence" foreshadows the tragedy that is to come.
Owen is addressing the reader, who possibly doesn’t have the first hand experience of the war, and criticising the enthusiasm with which the war is described, particularly to vulnerable children (BBC, 2013). Owen uses the language and a variety of literary devices to vividly depict the true reality of war and suffering of the soldiers. This is evident from the first two lines where Owen uses simile to describe soldiers who are ‘like old beggars’ and ‘coughing like hags’ (lines 1,2). They are ‘blood-shod’, ‘drunk with fatigue’ (lines 6,7). Owen depicts soldiers not as undefeatable heroes, but desperate, weak, and pitiful human beings.
A technique used to enhance the mood is imagery. Such as, describing the soldiers as “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks”. By using this simile it gives us a good description of the soldiers and suggests how unclean, malnourished and the health the soldiers are. Another good image used is “Drunk with fatigue” this implies the idea of the soldiers being unaware of things happening around them but by saying they are drunk with fatigue gives the idea they are struggling to move, even stand because they’re so tired from fighting. By using words like “sludge” and “trudge” contrasts with the way an average person perceives the idea of a soldier, they are usually seen as marching and singing songs to keep up spirits however this is not the case here.
This simile is an important contrast of the information people were fed at the time of soldiers being strong and proud. Owen strips away the image of a glorified war to reveal the bitter and cruel nature of the war. The bitter imagery “Coughing like hags” and “but limped on” also develops the idea of these young man seeming old. Owen takes pity on these tired and weary soldiers as he describes them in the most unglamorous, inglorious manner. The statement “all went lame, all blind’, while being somewhat hyperbolic suggests that the soldiers had lost all previous objectives of war along with the line “cursed through sludge”.
HOW DOES WILFRED OWEN CONVEY THE HORRORS OF WAR IN POETRY ? Many of Owen's poems direct anger towards the generals and those at home who have encouraged war.Owen's war poetry is a passionate expression of outrage at the horrors of war and of pity for the young soldiers sacrificed in it. It is dramatic and memorable, whether describing physical horror, such as in 'Dulce et Decorum Est' or mental torment such as in' Disabled'. His poetry evokes more from us than simple disgust and sympathy. Owen sympathizes with the vain young men who have no idea of the horrors of war, who are 'seduced' by others (Jessie Pope) and the recruiting posters.
This positive representation of conflict could be linked to Tennyson’s role of Poet Laureate under Queen Victoria’s reign. On the other hand Futility could be considered as an elegy for the unnamed solider and opens with a tender and sad tone shifting to pointlessness in the second stanza. The use of the pronoun him in the opening line suggests this could be any soldier from World War one demonstrating the number of men who would remain unnamed and unclaimed during this conflict and how bad it was that so many people died, and even the most patriotic soldiers would still die, unnamed in the end. The Charge of the light Brigade comprises of six stanzas, of varying in length from six to twelve lines and goes in chronological order. This could offer the reader the sense of riding in to the battle with the soldiers.