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.
But his eyes say it all. You can tell that his eyes are tried, puffy, and scared by the mission and Rougle’s death. Cortez seems like he’s about to start crying possible because he’s utterly exhausted and so scared to how he will over come this tragedy. Hijar also talks about the death of Sergeant Rougle and he says, “I’ll never forget it, I’ll just have to learn how to process it differently.” Hijar posses and the look on his face is shocked, as if he mentally relived it for that quick moment. He just looks so sad and frightened.
Wilfred Owen’s poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ describes a particular scene in the lives of WWI soldiers. Owen opens the poem with a description of the soldiers who are ‘Bent double, like old beggars’ (line 1). The soldiers are tired, fatigued, their feet are bleeding; they are marching from the battlefield towards their camp for some rest. They are then attacked by poisonous gas, effects of which are similar to drowning. One of the soldiers fails to fit the gas mask in time, and Owen masterfully describes himself witnessing the soldier’s gruesome death.
The Guilt They Carried The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a set of connected short pieces that tell the stories of the men of the Alpha Company before, during and after the Vietnam War. Far from a combat story of pride and glory, it is a compassionate tale dealing with the surreal and ambiguous nature of war. O’Brien illustrates the true brutality of war, beyond the glamour of Hollywood or the excitement of a game. Guilt is present throughout the novel as all the characters in The Things They Carried are haunted by guilt and look for someone or something to blame. They feel guilty for the deaths of men in their platoon, for the deaths of Vietnamese, and for their own inadequacies.
The Holocaust ruined numerous lives, including that of Evelyn Roman, who wrote “Aftermath”: a sorrowful poem that described her feelings about the concentration camps. Wiesel and Roman both share different and insightful outlooks about their experiences in the toughest part of their lives. They still remember a great deal of details “fifty years after the fact…” that they wish could vanish in an instant (1). Wiesel and Roman wondered every minute why they endured those experiences: no human deserves the horror they survived. Knowing that someone actually lived these stories made it almost unbearable to
One of Edwards more effective strategies was to paint a picture through words of the horrific nature and eternal suffering for souls that went “unsaved”. He really reached his audience effectively by using graphic descriptions to describe the torture that awaited sinners in hell. Even though the concept of hell seems so far fetched and unreal, Edwards delivery of his sermon scares his listeners into believing what he is saying, thus prompting them to follow his step by step plan for them to be saved. Later into his sermon, Edwards paints a beautiful picture of god dangling sinners above the fiery volcano known as hell. But just when you think there’s no way out of this ill-fated encounter with fire, Edwards shows his congregation the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and explains that through gods mercy and forgiveness one could be saved.
A poem in which the language and use of poetic technique gives us an insight into the less pleasant side of life is King Billy by Edward Morgan. King Billy is a poem that revolves around the life and death of a Glasgow Gang leader in the 1960’s called Billy Fullerton. It also looks at the poverty at this time in Glasgow. It is written in a free verse and uses many different writing techniques to get across the felling of emotions of Edwin Morgan. The theme of violence is depicted by the menacing introduction to the poem as we open at the funeral of a murderous gangster.
It is a way in which Owen shows how ridiculous he really thought the war was. 'Anthem' is a song that is sung in churches by choirs or could mean a celebration. The word 'Doomed' is used to suggest that the soldiers are alive but have an inevitable death. Additionally, it symbolises death and conjures up the image that the soldiers are on their journey to hell. The word 'Youth' is used to remind the reader that
Instead of focusing on the battle zone and seriously leading his team, Cross has his mind lost in obscure and intimate thoughts about her. Throughout the story, he keeps grieving and blaming himself for the death of his fellow soldier. The author realistically describes the moments of anxiety usually experienced by actual soldiers. Such moments could be observed In the case of Lieutenant Cross crying out of his passionate love at nights to Martha. Martha, in turn, described as a loyal girl waiting for Cross to come back, is only illustrated in the memories of Cross.
written by Jessie Pope, and finally contrast this with the poems by Owen. DISABLED I think that in the poem 'Disabled', Wilfred Owen is trying to convey the real tragedy of war. Many people think only of those killed but reading the poem you remember that many people who were not killed in the war could still have suffered a lot more. In the poem Owen focuses on one young man, a single victim of war. It shows the effect the war has on the young man's life, when on returning from the war he has been maimed "legless, sewn short at elbow" Owen writes the poem with style.