In the first stanza, Owen presents the idea that the personal struggles faced every moment on the front line are extremely underestimated, immeasurably terrifying and “obscene”. It seems more realistic when the story is told from a first person narrative; it allows us, the readers, to imagine what it would feel like if “we” were in the trenches and fighting on the front line. That understanding makes us realise the cruel situation that was, for them, an everyday occurrence from which they had no escape. The determination of the soldiers that they “limped on” even when they were “asleep”, “had lost their boots”, were “lame”, “blind”, “drunk with fatigue” and “deaf” to their “distant rest” makes it almost seem as if they were unbreakable; their defiance against anything thrown in their path was god-like and shows an unwavering sense of honour, as they “marched” and “cursed through”, for the fate of all those left at home. The distant rest could represent the end of the war, so far out of their sight, or the release of an untimely death.
War Photographer Essay War photographer is a very powerful message by Carl Ann Duffy. The poem is emotional and very powerful, in this poem, Duffy describes the experience of someone whose job it is to witness terrible crimes against humanity and bring them back to us many miles away. The poem is about how he deals with this kind of traumatic experience and how we must take more responsibility. Duffy makes it clear that these wars are happening across the from; Europe “Belfast”, To the Middle East; “Beirut”, To Asia, “Phnom Penh”. Duffy’s poem is about how we deal with the suffering of others, who might be far away.
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.
Conflict in any form can prove to be rather distressful and brutal towards an individual. This is evident in the poem Disabled by Wilfred Owen “And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey, Legless, sewn short at elbow “, as it displays the emotions and the brutal physical changes of a soldier who has been disabled by battle. Tragically the soldier is very much aware of what he has lost and of what he is never going to have in the future due to his injury “now he will never feel again how slim Girls waists are “. The poem also enforces that it is not only the ones who have died in the battle that pay the price for their participation in the war but also the large amount of those that returned after the war with abhorrent injuries. 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.
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.
And this helps to make the reader to consider about the roll of honor for the people. And with the literature devices use from the poem we can understand how the poet has shown her sorrow towards the victims in the wars. In Dulce et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen has described a gas attack during World War One with his strong emotions. He is strongly denying the concept of serving your country is glorious. The language used in the section about the gas attack represents both the pain of the victims from the gas attack and the effect on those who have seen the scene.
However, that he wrote to his mother contained detailed information of the number of wounds he had while fighting the battle. Virgilia is too emotional; she expresses her feelings by bursting into tears. Despite this, she condemns the Romans when they banish his husband from the nation. Though Virgilia is retiring and timid, she is also strong in her own ways. She fears blood and wounds.
Nothing should be sugar coded because many lives were lost and many individuals suffered a great deal and everyone should understand why. In McCrae’s poem “In Flanders Field” he explains life before and after war. There was once a time when they experience the feeling of love and the enjoyment of life, but now they lay dead looking back at the life they had to give up to fight in war. Those who have died have passed the torch to the next generation of soldiers. This proved that the peace treaty didn’t solve the problem and a new war would occur.
Despite the fact that war photography is widely understood to provide insight into the real terrors of war, there are many flaws in the believed objectivity of these photos. Although war photography is thought to purposefully cause the viewer to repudiate war, it ironically justifies and fuels conflict among its viewers. In her novel, Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag explores the depths of war photography and its effects on its viewers. Within the first few chapters of the novel, Sontag discusses the violent nature of war photography and its expected effects on its viewers; stating that while photographs can effect us and move us momentarily, they cannot move us beyond the image in order to construct an interpretation. She supports her main view by questioning the capability of the viewers to comprehend the raw terrors of war.
Owen used his poems to deliver the truth about war and change the views of society at that time. He used graphic and gruesome imagery about the horrors of war in order to illuminate his feelings. The horrors of war are most vividly and strikingly captured in the poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est.’ Owen attacks the reader with a barrage of detailed, gruesome, descriptions of life at war. He uses this technique of imagery to force the reader to visualize the truth about war. Owen also seeks to expose the betrayal of the authorities throughout poems such as ‘Disabled’ and ‘The parable of the old man and the young.’ He expresses how they acted with a disregard for the lives of their countries young men.