His aim is not poetry, but to describe the full horrors of war. In this essay I have firstly decided to analyze two poems by the war poet Wilfred Owen, taken from his writings on the First World War. Both 'Dulce et Decorum est' and 'Disabled" portray Owen's bitter angst towards the war, but do so in different ways. Then I will analyze a very different poem 'Who's for the Game?' written by Jessie Pope, and finally contrast this with the poems by Owen.
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. 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. Today, I’ll be analysing the poem, The War Works Hard, by Dunya Mikhail. She’s an Iraqi-American poet who has been awarded the UN human rights award for freedom of writing. She has experienced war first hand and was forced to flee Iraq in 1996.
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.
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 poem focuses on the effect of conflict and is focused on an injured, probably dead soldier. Owen uses this soldier to question to point of life being created it can be destroyed so easily. A Charge, which is what is what Tennyson portays, is patriotic with celebrating the courage and obedience of the soldiers. This can be seen in his use of glory, honour and noble in the poem. This positive representation of conflict could be linked to Tennyson’s role of Poet Laureate under Queen Victoria’s reign.
How does Owen use language to convey the horror of War in ‘The Sentry’ and ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’? ‘The Sentry’ and ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ both convey the harsh reality of war that Owen personally experienced however, ‘Dulce...’ focuses on the pain of the gased soldier whilst Owen widens the perspective in ‘The Sentry. There are many similarities between both poems, such as the way Owen presents a dramatic image of war by use of language techniques, however there are also many differences. Owen uses language to show the reality of war. The simile “like old beggars under sacks” illustrates the dirty, weak image of the soldiers which contrasts the strong, heroic image which was portrayed of them at the time.
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”.
Friends, Classmates, Fellow literary critics… Today, I am here to stress my knowledge on how the composer’s Siegfried Sassoon and Rupert Brooke have effectively conveyed their thoughts and feelings on war using themes, issues and techniques. Siegfried Sassoon chose to convey the theme of the outcomes war has had in those who survived (hence the name survivors) and how the process of war has aged them prematurely and darkened there spirits. The poem ‘survivors’ is a clever and well structured poem, Sassoon incorporates many techniques to emphasise and illuminate his main theme . Siegfried Sassoon uses primarily literal language; he rarely speaks metaphorically or figuratively thus the reason why we don’t see a frequency in metaphors, similes or imagery throughout the poem. He evokes a very bitter outraged mood in the reader, he’s thoughts and feelings produce anger and spite.
A.P. English 11 May 27, 2014 What is a true war story? One that tells of death and gloom, or one that defends the peaceful front? The Things They Carried written by Tim O’Brien explains to the world of readers what a true war story is. O’Brien tells these stories with different tones depending on which recollection; it is light and hopeful during “Love” or dark and hopeless within “The Man I Killed.” To create these works he uses imagination and invention to describe the true difficulties of a true war story.
One of the soldiers fails to fit the gas mask in time, and Owen masterfully describes himself witnessing the soldier’s gruesome death. Owen ends the poem with the Latin proverb from Horace's Odes (III.2.13) ‘Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori’, meaning 'It is sweet and proper to die for one's country' (Dr. Stuart Lee, 1997). With those last few lines, Owen expresses his deepest disapproval of the war. He is rejecting the traditional view that glorifies war, calling it ‘The old Lie’ (line 27). 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).