Comparative Study Essay

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English Essay Question; The comparative study of Siegfried Sassoon’s war poetry and ‘The Book Thief’ highlights the difficulties society faces in time of war. Discuss this statement through reference to three of Siegfried Sassoon’s poems and the novel ‘The Book Thief.’ ------------------------------------------------- When tragic things happen to society, many hardships and difficulties affect the people of earth. This is because it is not programmed in our nature to be able to cope with tragedy. It upsets us and makes us uncomfortable, affecting our everyday lives whether it’s a small or large impact. In-between the years of 1914 and 1918 and between 1939 and 1945 war struck our planet and took the lives of many. The wars wounded history and left many scarred. In Siegfried Sassoon’s poetry (focused on world war one) and in Marcus Zusak’s novel, ‘The Book Thief’, (focused on world war two) we gain a perspective from other peoples point of views about the difficulties that society faced when war was apparent in the every day lives of the people of that time. Family is something that becomes stronger in periods of war. This is because of the constant worry of losing them. In Siegfried Sassoon’s poem ‘The Hero’ the theme of loss is portrayed powerfully. The poem explains that a mother is being told about the passing of her son due to war. The mother is told that her son was brave and fought proudly under the United Kingdom’s flag. But within the four walls of the brother officer’s head, the reader discovers that her son did the complete opposite and was considered a ‘cold-footed - useless swine.’ This is an emotive technique used to make the reader shocked and angry that he’d lie about the loss of the mother’s son then think about him in such a negative and disrespectful way as if his passing didn’t matter. Through the representation of the mother losing
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