The subject matter contained within the poem, On the Death of Ronald Ryan is designed to evoke the reader’s own feelings on capital punishment. The body of the poem depicts the last minutes of the life of Ronald Ryan. We are given startling image of Ryan on the trapdoor, bravely waiting his end. A biographical detail is used, that he refused to be tranquilised. This makes him appear noble and brave, despite the fact that he was a murderer he is the one who emerges from this event with dignity, ‘You died most horrifyingly like a man.’ We are also made to feel guilty as he as described as ‘white faced’ beneath his hood.
This is illustrated throughout Shogun in the form of seppuku, a form of honorable suicide, especially for samurais who failed in battle. For example, in response to an insult, Blackthorne attempts seppuku, but is stopped because Toranaga needs him alive. This changes the view of him that the Japanese have, which was previously that he was dishonorable and filthy, like the other survivors of the shipwreck. As a result of this event, Blackthorne is given
War Photographer by Carol Ann Duffy is a chilling and disturbing poem which focuses on the destruction and bloodshed caused due to war. She describes the experience and feelings of a war photographer, whose job is to witness these harsh realities. In the poem, we see the photographer developing images that he had taken from the war, and how thoughts and memories come flooding back to him. The first two lines of the poem say ‘In his darkroom he is finally alone, With spools of suffering set out in ordered rows’. That shows that he had some time to himself and for his thoughts.
Mini Commentary Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light As under a green sea, I saw him drowning Wilfrid Owen – Dulce et Decorum Est In these two lines from his poem Dulce et Decorum Est, Wilfrid Owen compares experiencing the poison gas used on the battlefields of World War I to drowning in a vast and overwhelming sea. Through the thick haze of gas, Owen, narrating as a soldier, “dimly” watches one of his comrades dying. The image, obscured partly by the fumes, is murky and distorted – as though he viewing it underwater, but it is nonetheless very much present. Water imagery features prominently in this extract. The narrator first uses a metaphor comparing his cloudy vision on the battlefield to “misty panes” and then uses the simile “as under a green sea [I saw him drowning]” to describe his friend’s death.
Kenneth Slessor’s “Beach Burial” and “An Irish airman foresees his death” by William Butler Yeats are two poems each related to war and death. Both poems which really stood out are that they both have symbolisms of war and death. The poem decries the tragic, wanton waste of life. In Slessor’s “Beach Burial” he uses onomatopoeia, “sob and clubbing of the gunfire”. It gives us the impression of a muffled sound where sobbing is grief.
13 He thought how 'Jack', cold-footed, useless swine, 14 Had panicked down the trench that night the mine 15 Went up at Wicked Corner; how he'd tried 16 To get sent home, and how, at last, he died, 17 Blown to small bits. And no one seemed to care 18 Except that lonely woman with white hair. Big White Lies: Analytical Essay of The Hero by Siegfried Sassoon In “The Hero”, poet Siegfried Sassoon expresses his contempt towards the hypocrisy of warfare and especially his critical view of the authorities’ attempt at glorifying a soldier’s death. In this poem he provides stark contrast between the harsh truth and reality, employing the use of irony, imagery, contrast, and even alliteration. Firstly, Sassoon effectively uses irony to illustrate the contrast between the soldier’s real and glorified death, as well as the impression of a close-knit military unit, as opposed to the truth that no one had the compassion to care for a fallen soldier.
Atrahasis is also known as Ziusudra, and is the Ut-napishtim of the Gilgamesh epic. He was warned by a god named Enki to take apart his house and build a boat, because a flood was coming which would completely destroy mankind. The flood was due to the fact that the god Enlil has trouble sleeping because humans make too much noise. Enlil has already caused a plague, drought and famine, which were unsuccessful. Atrahasis was instructed to fill the boat with animals.
The two main senses of which we as humans rely most on, seeing and hearing where what mainly drove young youths in undertaking horrific actions towards themselves as individuals. This was displayed in Sassoon’s public statement of defiance (1917) “I have seen the suffering of the tropes”, and in the poem suicide of the trench “he put a bullet through his brain”. Both the public statement and the poem displayed the effects of sight and hearing on the soldiers, and how the destructiveness of conflict lead many of them to committing suicide and fairly a
This essay sets out to explore some of the ways in which the poet Gillian Clarke expresses her concerns about war in her work entitled Lament Throughout this poem Gillian Clarke uses imagery and metaphors to describe the death and destruction caused by war and how it affects every aspect of natural and human life. The title ‘Lament’ sets the sad tone of the poem. A lament is an expression of grief for things which are ruined or gone. The poet uses the title to begin a list of people and creatures which have been damaged by a recent war, so every verse (and also 11 lines), begin with the preposition ‘for’ after the word ‘lament’. In other words, each item introduced by ‘for’ is being mourned.
This feeling of fear is similarly felt in “Anthem For Doomed Youth” which is about the differences in how the men are treated when they die for example when they are left to rot in the mud instead of being buried in a church yard. The feeling of fear is shown when Owen says “Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,” This quote shows the fear of the families back home more than the men (soldiers) fighting and it is an important quote as well as it reminds the reader that war wasn’t all about the men dying on the front line because for each man that died that meant one less son to treasure and love, one less farther to comfort their child, one less brother to stand side by side, A main theme in this poem is to remind people that war effects everyone. The word ‘patient’ also implies how the families are waiting