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.
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
Hardy uses slang to get the reader involved in the poem, this allows Hardy to make a strong point in highlighting the irony behind how war can turn friend into foe simply by association and sway the reader against war. Both poems are against war and the reasons and ethics behind them. Though Hardy uses a more direct approach to get his point across, both poems successfully complete the objective that the poets had for them, which was to open the reader's eyes to the true reality of war. In "Dulce et decorum est", Owen is showing how the press and public at home were comforting themselves in the belief that all the young men dying in the war were dying noble, heroic deaths. Owen on the other hand, shows how the reality was quite different; the young men were dyeing and deaths in the trenches.
The poems of Wilfred Owen have offered the responder a new understanding of the experiences of war, specifically concerning the horrors of modern warfare. Owen skilfully employs a range of poetic techniques, such as apostrophe and mimesis to convey a sense of actual experience and empathy, which is particularly evident in his poems ‘Mental Cases’ and ‘Dulce et Decorum est’. Owen utilises a trochaic rhythm and feminine line endings in ‘Mental Cases’ to create a diminishing effect and a sense of sadness and negativity as he describes a group of ‘men whose minds the dead have ravished’. ‘Who are these?’ and ‘Who these hellish?’ Owen asks as he observes the men, dehumanising them with an allusion to hell. The fact that an observer cannot recognise this group as members of their own species further dehumanises the soldiers and shows the reader just how much that war has impacted on these men, both physically and mentally.
Owen uses audible and visual imagery to depict the ugliness and repulsiveness of war. “He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.” The use of audible and visual imagery combined, gives a vivid and ugly image that reveals and helps highlight the true horrors of war. In Owens poem ‘Mental Cases’ Owen uses blood imagery to shock and show the ugliness and repulsiveness of war. “Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter.” Owen is describing a soldier walking through dead bodies and stepping on them to see blood come gargling up there throat but stating that these dead bodies were once alive and ‘had loved laughter’. Clearly Owens ides about war are negative, and suggest that war is ‘futile’ and just brings death and destruction.
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 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.
Owen then seeks to convince the reader that it is not honourable or right to die for your country, as the title of the poem suggests so. He does this very successfully by presenting his very own opinion through a series of horrific and blood gorging imagery to show that the war is not honourable to die for. In stanza one, Owen describes the physical state of the soldiers to allow the reader to visualise and sense the cruel reality of how the war was for them. Their situation is made more realistic through the use of first person plural as displayed in the line “we cursed through the sludge”. Unexpected and contrasting descriptions of the soldiers such as referring to them as “bent double, like old beggars under sacks”, and associating them with animals by referring to them as “blood shod”, also changes the reader’s perception of what conditions were like during the war.
He also makes it seem like everything is crumbling around Paul, and destroying all hope of survival and return to normal life for anyone who had experienced the front line. This is very different from pro-war poetry, which makes war seem fun. Something Remarque does either subconsciously or very well, is to make you feel sorry for the German and Central Powers’ soldiers, and to grow a subliminal hate for the allied soldiers, no matter who’s side you came in on. The Textbook also does this well, but in reverse. The Textbook gives off a sense of dislike towards the Central Powers, and made them seem primitive and destructive for no reason.
This illustrates how bad the circumstances are for the soldiers fighting, and goes against the idealistic image of what a battle should look like or how a soldier should appear after a battle. The way Owen tells this story shows that his view of the war was that the soldiers have no comprehension of a righteous cause or a meaning behind their sacrifice. Specifically, the rhyming, tone, and imagery will all help to demonstrate that point. Owen uses the rhyming in the poem to help reflect his own personal beliefs about war onto the reader. The rhymes that Owen chooses are particularly useful for finding out what his message to the reader here is.