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.
All these events inspired John Steinbeck to write his novella Of Mice and Men. His title was borrowed from Robert Burn’s poem “To a Mouse.” It comes from his second to last lines of the poem “The best laid schemes o’mice an’ men Gang aft a-gley. An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, for promis’d joy!” (Burn 7). In the poem Burn describes how the mouse has uprooted a mouse’s net with his plow (Literary Cavalcade 1) (Allan 1, 2). John Steinbeck’s choice to title his novella Of Mice and Men is reflected through the poem written by Robert Burns “To a Mouse” through animal imagery, the identification of animals with humans, and how both men and animal suffer in the end.
In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, the author, Harper Lee has used symbolism with emotive language, frequent use and symbolising people to help the reader understand the timeless idea of how infested with prejudice people and societies can be. The word ‘sin’ is used in “it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird,” rather than a word like ‘wrong’ because of the strong negative connotations associated with it. These make the reader understand how unforgivable it is to ‘kill a mockingbird’ which is a symbol representing innocent people that are harmed undeservedly. Using a powerful word such as ‘sin’ conveys the extent of the evil shown by those who ‘kill mockingbirds’ with prejudice. An example of this are the rumours circulating around the “tired, old town” of Maycomb about the recluse ‘Boo’ Radley.
Discuss how Owen’s perspective on human conflict is conveyed in his poetry. Wilfred Owen’s personal experience at war is reflected in his poetry, depicting the brutality of war and conflict. He portrays his perspective about human conflicts in his poetry and effectively conveys the truth about the agony of war in his war poems, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ (Dulce) and ‘Mental Cases’. To portray his attitudes towards war, Owen uses a diversity of poetic devices to shock and emotionally stir his readers. As a semi-autobiographical recount, Owen criticises the suffering and psychological scarring of soldiers in ‘Mental Cases’.
This unspecified and detached account of this action and the death in general, shows the way in which the members of the platoon deal with the complexity of the war experience. So much so that O’Brien is able to turn the story of Curt Lemon to a love story. Many go into a war story expecting to hear about triumph, pride, courage, and sacrifice. However, O’Brien claims that a true war story will shatter all previous expectations of a war story and instead be about evil and more obscene things. O’Brien says, “A true war
The added use of “they” ultimately shows the loss or lack of identity held by these men in life or death. In addition, the regular rhyme scheme in the poem portrays the ongoing harshness and bitterness that Browning feels towards the display. Enjambment blurs the evenly spaced content which furthermore shows that Browning is confused about why brutality was allowed and continued to happen. In the sixth stanza, Browning puzzles over the causes of suicide: disillusioned idealism, the world’s cruelty, money and women. This is shown by “Money gets women, cards and dice Get money, and ill luck gets just The copper couch…”.
Both Dawe and Slessor use powerful imagery to illustrate their anti-war sentiments. The two poems address the gravity of war and the awful sacrifices of men too young to die and the use of imagery in each adds another dimension and plays a crucial part in emphasizing the message of pieces. Imagery is used in both poems to create a sense of unification in death, both between the families of the dead boys as in homecoming when Dawe used imagery such as ‘the spider grief swings’ through the ‘wide web of suburbs’ as the news of death reaches each house and unifies the whole country in mourning. But a different type of unification in beach burial as Slessor unifies the dead soldiers from both sides of the war, ‘the sand joins them together’ in their graves, they are all labelled as ‘unknown soldiers’ and Slessor describes them all as ‘gone in search of the same landfall’. Another type of imagery that appears in both poems in the description of the war itself and the imagery used reinforces the brutality of it, so is the aim of both poems.
This notion is further emphasised through the use of jargon in the lines, “The Japs used to weigh us, to see how thin our bodies could get before we started dying”. This statement implies the nature of the camp to be brutal and unforgivable. Misto has incorporated both visual images and jargon to create an effective sense of authority to therefore relive their experience of war through memory. Likewise, the poem Dulce et decorum est by Wilfred Owen is how the post himself saw war with no knowledge, imagination or training which prepared Owen for the shock and suffering of front line experience. Its horrifying imagery has made it one of the most popular condemnations of war ever written.
Of Mice and Men The title of the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck was entitled to the novel for multiple reasons. The poem “To a Mouse” by Robert Burn is a poem of realism and Of Mice and Men is a line of the poem meaning mice and men had similar struggles during The Great Depression. It reflects on the conflict person vs. fate because the characters in the story have real life problems interfering with their future. One character that is effected by real life problems is Crooks. Another character effected as well is George.
As the poem progresses, Mikhail begins to mock the routine of war, (wakes the sirens…dispatches ambos…swings corpses through the air) therefore showing us the harmful effects of war. Dunya Mikhail portrays the realities of war through the use of personification and lack of punctuation. As you can see the structure of the poem almost resembles that of a list, creating the effect of life during the war, long and routine. Through the use of action verbs such as swings, summons and digs for example she is using this language to show what the war does by giving it human qualities (read examples). The start of the poem (read first 3 lines) has quite a sarcastic tone and I think this shows how she feels towards the military glorifying war, doing whatever they can to convince you to join.