The repetition of question marks and dashes illustrate the confusion and frustration witnessing Owens fellow comrades, it is a demanding tone begging for explanation for the entrapment of victims. And as a result, it encourages the reader to consider the impact the war had on both, the soldiers who survived, and those who didn’t. Dulce et Decorum Est brings to reality that war is not what people say it is. Given by its very title, ‘It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country’. Although, it only an illusion reinforced throughout the poem, along with its irony and sarcasm that is ‘The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori’, it is not sweet and fitting to die for ones country.
Throughout ‘The War poems’ Owen creates a sense of sympathy for the soldiers who fight in war and are forced to endure horrific atrocities that either they themselves commit, or are committed against them, the continual assaults on their physical and emotional wellbeing. In the poems Owen recreates his experiences being an officer on the ‘Western Front’ in World War I, and voices his bitterness towards and rejection of the futility of war; the never ending loss of life at the hands of the British Military. Owen condemns those who encouraged young men to go to war and used rhetoric to give off the impression that war rewarded young men with glory. Owen rejects this in his poems by reflecting his own experiences as ‘Glorious’ and investigating the horrors of war, and their effect on the physical and emotional wellbeing of soldiers. Owen’s poems are riddled with references to the loss of youth, innocence and life.
Especially when she reminisces in the final stanza about the time she was young and beautiful, illustrating her complete lack of confidence. Nevertheless, she is still presented as a foul character who threatens the reader, with the line ‘Be terrified’. The poem also ends with the line ‘Look at me now’ which has a double entendre (double meaning). It could be read as a cry of despair or, as a threat – if you did look at Medusa you would die! This leaves the reader feeling conflicting emotions for the character, probably similar to how Medusa herself feels in the poem.
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.
Suicide in the Trenches – A hidden massage of a personal abhorrence How is war like? Siegfried Sassoon’s poem “Suicide in the Trenches” answers this question effectively through communication of his personal abhorrence of accruing bloodshed in war. He presents his hidden massage by contrasting images of a desperate young soldier and the conceited crowds to reveal his resentment of war. Sassoon uses the two main components to presents extreme abomination are language and content. Sassoon uses blameful language to describe the ruthless of government in order to reveal the ugly hidden massage as settling the situation.
In Jean Rhys’ novel Wide Sargasso Sea, Rhys commences the story with a very melancholic tone. By portraying the harsh circumstances under which the Cosway family lives, Rhys establishes a very hopeless tone from the start. The unusual and tense mother and daughter relationship between Antoinette and her mother also portrays discord and strengthens Rhys’ depiction of a very sad and glum atmosphere. The use of a variety of narrative techniques such as harsh imagery enables Rhys to effectively depict the ominous theme of death and pain in this novel and the depressing atmosphere which carries on throughout the novel. Within the first couple of sentences of the novel, Rhys harshly portrays the difficult circumstances in which Antoinette and her family live.
All they end up doing though is becoming another casualty, another statistic, dying in a war that had no real reason. The only thing those soldiers ended up doing was proving that war truly is futile. What about the families of those dead soldiers? Are they comforted by the fact that their family members are incredibly brave? No, they are not, all they know is that their son or brother is gone, and the only reason for their loss, is a war which is completely futile, a pointless war which destroyed an entire generation.
The narrator is clearly miserable with her life and considers suicide to be the only solution. Killing herself would relieve the pain she feels on a daily basis. “Daddy” is another poem that demonstrates Plath’s common death by suicide theme. In the poem, she writes that “At twenty I tried to die / And get back, back, back to you. / I thought even the bones would do (Plath 58-60)”.
War In Wilfred Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” Owen uses persuasive Similes and metaphors to convey the reality of war. Owen’s tone of disgust brings alive the five senses and challenges the notion that it is “sweet and proper to die for ones country”. In the Final Stanza of the poem, Owen’s uses several similes to depict a gruesome and disgusting image. “His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin” (line 20), the speaker’s use of this simile is very powerful. Sin is the devil’s reason for existence.
Sassoon’s poetry described the horrors of the war and how disgusting it is. Two poems which show the perspective of war is: Firstly, Counter-Attack, which describes how war is like; and secondly, died of wounds, which show the condition of war. The poems relate to the feeling and emotion war creates. Also it shows how horrible war is. The techniques that Sassoon has used in the poems are: imagery, simile, metaphor and onomatopoeia.