With his effective use of imagery, diction and irony, Wellford Owens strips away the glory of war and reveals the horror of what it was really like to fight in WWI. Imagery is one of the powerful devise Owen uses to show the realities of war in his poem. Owen uses descriptive words and graphic imagery to provoke feeling and deep emotions within the reader as a way of driving home his anti-war message. For instance, he writes of “froth-corrupted lungs,’’(22)”sores on innocent tongues” (24)and even describes the dying man’s face as a “devil’s sick of sin“(20). As a reader one cannot help but get a mental picture of the terrible war condition as well as feel deep compassion for the soldier.
Mental Cases illustrate the disconnection many soldiers face in society. The rhetorical question opening the first stanza “who are these?” labels these soldiers as unearthly all the while dehumanising them by accumulating their animalistic features. Descriptions like “drooping tongues” and “baring teeth” emphasises the plight of soldiers who have experienced trauma and are unable to overcome their shock. Owen’s use of inclusive language in “surely we have perished” creates a distance between these men and the rest of society as Owen refers to them as “hellish”. Depictions of warfare and accumulated images of death in the second stanza answer the rhetorical questions in the first stanza about the origin of these creatures.
Throughout this extract it is clear that Bertrand Russell holds conflicting views towards World War One. Much of the language he uses is extremely emotive; he describes the men’s deaths as being ‘slaughtered’, his own feelings like being ‘tortured’ and the fighting as ‘barbarism’. Immediately this portrays that he himself has strong feelings and emotions towards the war and uses effective language to show this. In addition to this, he separates his views accordingly. This is particularly evident in the first paragraph in which he expresses a clear anger towards Asquith and Grey, the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary at the time of writing, even talking of ‘murder’, showing the extent to which he feels a pacifist.
This very blatant observation demonstrates Remarque’s point that war is simply gruesome. However, even though Remarque often points out the brutal blood bath that a battle can bring he also describes how cruel the army can be when they aren’t fighting anyone. When Paul and his friends are discussing how vicious superior officers such as Himmelstoss can be Kat explains how that came to be, “man is essentially a beast…the army is based on that; one man must always have power over the other. A non-com, can torment a private, a lieutenant a non-com, a captain a lieutenant, until he goes mad,” (Remarque 44). Kat describes the never ending cycle of abusive punishment that comes from a commanding officer making a man vengeful and in turn brutal to those he is superior to.
Dulce Et Decorum Est Wifred Owen’s war poem “Dulce Et Decorum Est” is poem in which there is incident vividly in a scene. Wilfred Owen expreses how it is so sweet and honourable to die for your country but also disagrees with this. Owen uses great word choice and through this technique this cause emotional and also dramatic stanza’s which include death. ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ tells us of the horrors and traumatizing effects of World War I. Wilfred Owen achieves this by using descriptive language to tell us of the terrible state of the weary soldiers and trench life. He then goes on to describe the horrific and deadly gas attack that takes the soldiers by surprise.
Owen uses numerous techniques to convey meaning of the human experiences on the battlefield. War is seen to dehumanise soldiers due to what they experience on the battlefield, and Owen uses many techniques to express it. In “Dulce Et Decorum Est”, Young men are portrayed as old men due to the dehumanising effects of the battlefield. The verse; “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge” show the hostility these men faced. Owen uses simile to compare the young men to old “hags”.
By using a sonnet for the structure of his poem, Wilfred Owen introduces a touch of irony. The conventional function for a sonnet is love, but this poem has a sort of anti-love, or rather, a love that turns bad. The young male population have so much patriotic love, and are so eager to serve, but this love turns sour. They spend time rotting in the wastes of the trenches, only to be mown down in the blink of an eye by a machine-gun. Not only are their lives wasted, gone without the holy rite of a funeral, but the lives of their loved ones at home are also ruined.
Neither the reader nor Bigger knows what is going on, and when Bigger wakes up confused, the reader also “awakens” confused. With these methods, Wright lets the reader feel that what Bigger did was not in ill will, but the reader also struggles because they realize what Bigger did was extremely wrong. This is shown when Bigger acknowledges his wrongdoings, and also when he admits that he killed Mary and Bessie. Bigger says, “When I saw I couldn’t get the money, I killed her to keep her from talking.” (Wright 307) This could be a point where the audience
He purposely uses powerful adjectives in his phrases, such as “burnt her inside out” and “she was in great agony”; the word “agony” is emotive because it suggests an extremely unbearable pain. Sheila responds “miserably” which illustrates that she has been saddened by the news the Inspector had announced. However, this has an impact on Sheila but Mr and Mrs Birling, who are set in their ignorant time frame of mind, fail to see this. Their callous attitude prevents them from accepting any blame or responsibility for their own actions, and they fail to recognise that all actions have consequences. Their social class is also revealed when they are talking about Eva Smith.
Dr. Roylott is presented a scary, unwanted man. This is found when Helen Stoner describes her father ‘he became the terror of the village’. The adjective ‘terror’ shows that he causes not just unrest within his village, but has manipulated the village through his actions and words to fear him. The fact that he has caused this, shows that he thrives off negative energy. This makes the reader feel sad as they realise that his confidence and happiness will grow as Sherlock hits setbacks and emits negative energy, which will dampen Holmes’s spirits.