The pace of the first four lines in stanza one is very fast. Owen immediately uses a simile and lots of visual imagery. “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge” The way in which Owen has described the men, the soldiers, in the trenches is far from being heros, in fact, it is as if they are low level and very insignificant and even possibly “beggars” referring to witches. When thinking of witches, visual imagery is created, making the reader imagine old, decrepit and haggard people, again the image being far from a hero. Where as in contrast the poem
It is barbaric, awful and a terrible waste of human life. The rain is constantly flooding the trenches and turning the floor into mud, it is so bad that many of the men are getting open sores on their feet, they call it trench foot and they can hardly walk because of the pain. Life here is gruesome. Yesterday I saw my friend, Michael Phellps, die right in front of me because he had lost his gas mask and the enemy's gas was everywhere in the air. We couldn't do anything but watch him die, screaming for help.
How is conflict presented in the poems Futility and The Charge of the Light Brigade? The title of Wilfred Owen’s ‘Futility’ captures the dominant sense of uselessness and helplessness in relation to conflict, felt by the soldiers in the face of their comrade’s recent death. The poem focuses on the effect of conflict and is focused on an injured, probably dead soldier. Owen uses this soldier to question to point of life being created it can be destroyed so easily. In contrast Tennyson’s Charge depicts a disastrous battle during the Crimean War and therefore shows the disbelief and horror of conflict.
This resulted from the foot being left in water, which often accumulated at the bottom of the trenches, for long amounts of time and could sometimes cause the skin to fall right off the bone. Kemmerich, who is one of Paul’s classmates and comrade, has a similar situation happen to him in “All Quiet in the Western Front” when his foot became infected with gang green because of an artillery wound he suffered in battle which ultimately had to be amputated off. Kemmerich would lose the fight for his life. The conditions were so real and miserable that his fellow comrades tried to persuade him to give away his boots. It was then that Paul realized the true agonies of war—surviving the agony of war forces one to learn to disconnect oneself from emotions like grief, sympathy, and fear.
Charles Gryder October 10, 2012 Period 3 Essay Final Draft All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, Pro-war poetry, and the World Studies Textbook are all very alike but at the same time very different. All Quiet on the Western Front is strictly anti-war, and describes it as a horrible, disgusting, and terrifying thing and is very slightly biased towards the Germans. Pro-war poetry glorifies war and makes it sound like an honorable, fun, and happy activity, and is biased towards the Allied Forces. The World Studies Textbook seems completely factual, but it shows bias at times towards the Allied Forces. All Quiet on the Western Front, pro-war poetry, and the World Studies Textbook, all contain bias, whether it is apparent or hidden, against the Central Powers, or for the Central powers, and they all are very different in the way that they portray war.
As well as these problems in the summer one of the worst things was the stink. The smell of rotting corpses stank and became bloated. These corpses also led to the spread of disease throughout the Allied trenches causing losses. When autumn came many soldiers thought it was a blessing to be free of the heat but as it got colder they were faced with the problems such as flooding, wind gusts and frostbite. The conditions overall in the trenches of Gallipoli were pretty horrible as were the many of trenches of World War
In this book, the author reveals the ugliness of war, and examines its relationship to the pain of growing up. This is a story about a young man named Henry who wants to fight for the Union in the Civil War. He leaves his mother behind and finds himself
Unfortunately one soldier doesn’t get his mask on in time and suffers a horrific death. Owen then describes the nightmares he has after witnessing such an awful sight which leads up to the moral message at the end of the poem. Wilfred Owen uses a number of literary techniques to describe the physical and mental suffering of the soldiers marching back to base. For example imagery is expressed with the use of the simile “like old beggars, under sacks” is effective because it compares the young soldiers to old beggars showing that the war has prematurely aged them and the sacks refer to the heavy bags of equipment they carry on their backs. A similar example would be the simile “coughing like hags” again a reference to being old as a hag is an elderly woman.
I believe a lot of the anti-conscription believers would have a family consisting of sons and its only natural to not want your young son to go fight in a War that you won’t know when or if he will return. I believe this is a valuable source and would be useful to a historian studying this period because it shows a side of Vietnam War and keeps you interested and wanting to know about other campaigns and parties. Additionally, other campaigns such as Save Our Sons, and Youth Campaign Against Conscription were also against conscription and didn’t believe in the sending off of innocent lives. My last source, Source C which is may chosen source is once again a primary source, it is a pro-conscription poster for the Vietnam War. It is a poster divided on two sides with a young man at War in his uniform and the other side is a young man as well kicking back enjoying life reading a magazine.
Let us first consider the poem from the aspect of symbolism and motifs. The first stanza brings clear images to mind of the painful physical conditions which soldiers are operating under. The tone is slow and deep and the reader can relate to the informal and slang diction and concepts within the poem, such as: “Bent double, like old beggars,” “Knock-kneed,” “Men march(ing)…(who) had lost their boots,…limped on blood-shod (bloody-feet/shoes). All went lame; all blind…drunk with fatigue.” What is so interesting is that much of that stanza speaks of things having to do with legs and feet experiencing severe injury, weakness, fatigue, and pain. Most people have the use of their legs and feet, but these descriptors help relate the importance and value of healthy, strong legs.