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Wars effect on literature
Literature affected by wars
Critical reading of dulce et decorum est
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What would it feel like to be in the middle of the bloodiest war in history? Surrounded by death on all sides it seems impossible that anybody would write poetry about this very subject. Thanks to the poem “Dulce et Decorum Est,” Wilfred Owen gives the reader a small window into the horrors that he witnessed firsthand in the carnage of battle. Faced with death at every turn, Owen takes the time to chronicle these terrible events that happened shortly before his own death. Owen uses rhythm, rhyme, and imagery to convey the message that people should be careful glorifying war because it is a very traumatic event that takes many innocent lives.
When a reader tries to understand the rhythm of “Dulce et Decorum Est” it becomes a bit tricky to find any type of rhythm. When reading shortly into the poem, one notices that there does seem to be a heartbeat to the poem when it states in line 3: “Till on the haunting flares we turned our back”. Owen uses iambic pentameter to achieve this pattern as almost all of the lines which have a rising meter and 5 feet. Having this underlying heartbeat to the poem speaks to the humanity and allows the reader to personalize with what is being said. Owen then contrasts the use of iambic pentameter in several lines including line 23 when he says, “Bitter as the cud”, as if to make that really stand out to the reader. Owen then further chops up the rhythm to make it seem as if he were telling a story to the reader. This is evident when an individual starts to encounter the heavy use of punctuation in when it says, “But limped on, blood-shood. All went lame, all blind” (6). It also makes the poem more vivid throughout and makes the reader really stop and think about what is happening in the line. Owen a...
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... that “someone was yelling out” (11), and that there was “blood” (22) “gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs” ( 23). With rich imagery being used throughout the poem, it becomes clear that Owen intended to use imagery to help the reader feel as if they were present in the situation along side of him. This allows the reader to personalize this situation and gain a better understanding of the message that is being sent.
Through the use of rhythm, rhyme, and imagery Owen forces the reader to ponder about the thought that war isn’t an event that should be taken lightly. Many kind and brave soldiers have lost their lives over the history of humanity and that loss of life, while honorable, is extremely tragic. Thanks to Owen’s poetry people are able to look back at this time in history and hopefully learn valuable lessons about the value of human life.
All exceptional poetry displays a good use of figurative language, imagery, and diction. Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" is a powerful antiwar poem which takes place on a battlefield during World War I. Through dramatic use of imagery, metaphors, and diction, he clearly states his theme that war is terrible and horrific.
Owen's poems the irony between the truth of what happens at war and the lie that was
In ‘Anthem of Doomed Youth’ Owen shows another version of the suffering- the mourning of the dead soldiers. When Owen asks “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?”, his rhetorical question compares the soldiers to cattle as they die and suffer undignified. Owen uses this extended metaphor to confront us with the truth, that there are too many fatalities in war. As such, the soldier’s deaths are compared to livestock, to emphasise their poor treatment and question our perspective about soldiers dying with honour. With an overwhelming death toll of over 9 million during WWI, Owen depicts how the soldier’s die with the repetition of “Only the...” to emphasise the sounds of war that kills soldiers in the alliteration ‘rifles’ rapid rattle.’ Owen also illustrates the conditions that the soldiers died in and how they were not given a proper funeral in the cumulation ‘no prayers nor bells,/ nor any voice of mourning.’ Owen painfully reminds us that we have become complacent with the deaths of soldiers, seeing them as a necessary sacrifice during human conflict. Thus, Owen shows us what we have overlooked about war, that is, that it brings endless death and long-lasting grief to the surviving soldiers and the people around
In Wilfred Owen’s ‘Dulce et Decorum est’, he uses many important techniques that create an impact. Owen wrote the poem in order to describe the horrors of war, and with that would be able to attack the jingoistic beliefs that many people (such as Jessie Pope) possessed. His description of the horrific nature of war creates a lasting impact on the readers. To achieve this, Owen used techniques such as similes, metaphors, alliteration and finished off with an imperative statement.
...e see a young boy being taught how to use weapons. In “Exposure”, Owen depicts a group of soldiers freezing to death at war, even though they aren’t in the midst of fighting. Lastly, in “Dulce Et Decorum Est” we read about a soldiers who struggles to get his mask on during a gas attack (when the enemy releases a gas deadly upon inhale). Owen describes the soldiers slow death in detail. Not only do these images provide the reader with first hand accounts of war, but they also show Owen’s feelings towards the war. All of these images that are glued into his head will be there forever, which is why he incorporates these realities in his poems, so that everyone can realize that war is nothing more than a inhumane act of terror.
‘Poetry can challenge the reader to think about the world in new ways.’ It provokes the readers to consider events, issues and people with revised understanding and perspectives. The poems Dulce Et Decorum Est (Wilfred Owen, 1917) and Suicide in the Trenches (Siegfried Sassoon, 1917), were composed during World War One and represented the poets’ point of views in regards to the glorification of war and encouraged readers to challenge their perspectives and reflect upon the real consequences behind the fabrications of the glory and pride of fighting for one’s nation.
Owen uses striking images and vivid imagery in both poems to clearly show his anger of people who were disillusioned about war, and to show the harsh reality of war. A sense of pathos runs throughout the poems in the reader for the men. The sarcasm used in ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ shows Owens passion of getting his point across. Many peoples attitude of war in England had changed drastically by the time Wilfred Owen wrote these two poems. ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ and ‘Disabled’ both realistically reflected contemporary attitudes to the ‘Great War’ at the time they were written.
In the poem Dulce et Decorum Est Wilfred Owen reflects on his experience serving on the frontlines of World War One. In the most basic sense, Owen acts as a reporter, as he accurately and informatively sums up the horrors and fears faced by millions of combatants around the world. Before I begin to analyze the poem it is important to recognize some background on the atrocities of World War One.
Within Owens body of work his purpose is to highlight and emphasise the troubles and hardships of war which have been concealed from society, whilst further conveying the futility of war. Owen advocates against an establishment determined to promote the continuation of a brutal war which place the desires of the elite and the upper classes before the needs of the common man. Owen dismisses the idea that war is just and honourable and in doing so, rallies against Victorian ideals. Owen describes war with great horrific and nightmarish authenticity within both poems ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ and ‘Anthem For Doomed Youth’
Owen’s poem uses symbolism to bring home the harsh reality of war the speaker has experienced and forces the reader to think about the reality presented in romanticized poetry that treats war gently. He utilizes language that imparts the speakers experiences, as well as what he, his companions, and the dying man feels. People really die and suffer and live through nightmares during a war; Owen forcefully demonstrates this in “Dulce et Decorum Est”. He examines the horrific quality of World War I and transports the reader into the intense imagery of the emotion and experience of the speaker.
Imagine an everlasting nightmare! Something you can never outrun or hide from, no matter how hard you try you just cannot get it out of your head. It affects your everyday life: your relationships, your actions. It is a horrendous and unescapable pain drilled into the depths of your brain and deepest crevices of your heart. This is what Wilfred Owen is depicting in his sonnet “Dulce Et Decorum Est.” He re-counts a vivid remembrance where he observed a man drown in a sea of green gas, then returns home to a populace that pursues glory, and believes it is sweet and honorable to die in battle. By using, a barge of themes, diction, and sarcasm Owen illustrates the pain and interminable effects of war.
Owen’s poems contains repetition to bring the discomfortness and confusion in his poems. He uses repetition in various poems such as,“Disabled,”“Exposure,”and “Asleep”. In, “Disabled”, repetition is mostly effective in stanza four when the ex-soldier stumbles through his recollections
Owen describes the way the soldier moved in the gas; spastically moving and screaming like if he was burning in flames. Owen describes the way the soldier died as drowning in a green sea. It is then shown through imagery how graphic the soldier's death was, Owen says “he plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning...his hanging face like a devil’s sick of sin; if you could hear, at every jolt, the blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs”. The poem is mainly about how brutal and sickening war can be. When Owen states “his hanging face like a devil’s sick of sin”, it means that even the devil himself is sick of the cruelty of the war.
War brings about the death of thousands, leaving behind trails of corpses, and unfulfilled promises of glory. The idea of glory on the battlefield is emphasized to young, impressionable minds that fall to believe. Two poems that deal with this issue are “Dulce et Decorum Est” written by Wilfred Owen in 1920, and “War is Kind” written by Stephan Crane in 1899. “Dulce et Decorum Est” is a fictional first-hand view of war in action. The poem’s peak occurs when the narrator is reciting what he sees when another soldier encounters poisonous gas. “War is Kind” is more of a situational view of war because the scenarios can fit a wide variety of stories during wartime. The poem gives three situations where the wife, child, and mother are told how their loved ones died on the battlefield.
The poem "Dulce et Decorum est" was written by Wilfred Owen during World War One, and is probably the most popular war-poem ever written.The title is part of the Latin phrase 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori' which means 'It is sweet and right to die for your country'. Wilfred Owen saw the war first-hand and this poem is about a gas attack that he witnessed. Throughout this poem Owen gives the sense of anger and injustice through the use of many different poetic techniques.