War Photographer Poem

Here, Owen skilfully portrays the ghastly war by the moving image of the soldiers’ families mourning at their loss and their irreconcilable grief all caused by war. For example, Owen’s use of the harsh alliterative ’d’ within the image ’…each slow dusk…blinds’ highlights the devastation and silent suffering experienced by those on the home front. Moreover, the use of the adjective ’slow’ reinforces the responders to visualise the endless and unrelenting torment of the grief-stricken families. Furthermore, the use of the collective noun ’girls’ in the sestet reinforces the silent suffering of those on the homefront who are helpless and forced to endure the pain of grief at such a young age. From these striking images, the responders are forced to not only sympathise for the dead, but also for the poor souls that were left behind and deprived of any sort of human closure.

Through its contrasting characters, Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five attempts to dissuade its audience from war by demonstrating its insanity. Billy Pilgrim demonstrates the absurdity of war through his own insanity caused by his experiences in war. During his moments on Tralfamadore, Billy learns the philosophies of the Tralfamadorians. They see their lives as one large moment, knowing what has happened and what will happen, similar to Billy. When faced with the death of others, Billy “simply [shrugs] and [says] what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is ‘So it goes’” (Vonnegut 26).

Owen betrays the men of the young generation being brutally slaughtered, like cattle, and were fated to death. Owen recognizes the feelings of the family and friends of the victims of war, the people mourning over the loss of their loved ones. Owen also uses personification in the poem, “monstrous anger of the guns” which reinforces the concept of the senseless slaughter of the soldiers. This makes the audience think about the war, and the image of heavy machine guns can be pictured in their minds, bringing them into the poet’s world of poetry. As seen in both poems, ‘Dulce et Decorum est Pro Patria Mori’ and ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ Owen brings the audience into the his world, making them feel and think like him, knowing what he has experienced and what he dreads, and therefore successfully involves the reader into the world of poetry.

The Hags is connected with the word beggers as they both outcasts in society. What's more words like beggers, hags and blood-shod shows what the war has done to the soldiers of war.. Through his use of vivid words and portrayal it makes us understand the effects of war and what it involves. The Stanza continues ‘Till on the haunting flares’, this suggests that the soldiers are possibly disturbed and are being haunted by the flares. The last line further shows the effects of war, the soldiers are deaf to the gas shells dropping right behind them.

He describes war as atrocious, and explains the cruelty and massacre the soldiers go through. He addresses the reader and advises them that it’s not worth dying at war for quick glory. Owen has shown this by saying, “His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sins;”, which signifies the horror of what they were dealing with. They without doubt have converse portrayals of war. Figurative languages have been used in both poems to portray their experiences at war.

These images are used to show the immense harm and the brutality of war and its effect on men. The dead soldier describes the blood that clogged their “chariot-wheels” (line 35) showing his regret for participating in the war now that he was aware of its ugliness. Thus, when the soldier states that “the foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were” (line 42), he truly expresses the cruelty of war and how it leaves men with scarred souls. All of these images highlight the pure pain of war. Owen’s use of assonance, alliteration and onomatopoeia in the poem help to bring it to life and remind us of the horrific situation at ... ... middle of paper ... ...fred Owen to effectively build sympathy for the second soldier as he describes the pain that men suffered in war.

The title meaning 'It is sweet and becoming to die for one's country' is used satirically because the poem describes the horror and agony that the soldiers endured during their time in the trenches. The title is used in contrast with the first line. It is a shocking description of once young and healthy boys. 'Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knocked-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through the sludge.' This line shows the reader that the men are so tired and worn out by the war that they can be compared to 'old beggars'.

Beginning with a series of descriptions about the soldiers returning from the frontline, Owen shows us how these men contradict the model soldier portrayed in the recruitment posters. The soldiers that we see now have become beaten down with pain, and exhaustion: “old beggars, bent double” and “hags”. Here Owens shows us the true reality of war, and its impact upon the soldiers, he; shows us how the everyday combat has taken its toll upon the generation, practically taken out the whole cohort. Wilfred Owen goes on to describe the soldiers in even deeper description, and along the way he uses the term “blood-shod”. The term “blood-Shod” brings the idea of blood shed, again representing the overall scene of weariness, and death.

In addition, he questions God by asking him what the people he “betrayed, gassed, and burnt” had done (Wiesel 64). He began to doubt God and inquired God about how they had been unfaithful to him. He also asks why they were put into torture in this way to be put to death. Wiesel was despondent due to God allowing such pain to occur. Thus, the childhood wartime experiences of Wiesel had a negative impact on Wiesel’s life because it caused him to lose faith in God.

In ‘Prayer before Birth’, written by Louis MacNeice during the Second World War, the persona (an unborn child) shows its fear of entering the world and is scared of what the world can do to innocent people: it does this through a form of a prayer in which it pleas to be turned away from the danger that the future may hold. ‘A Mother in a Refugee Camp’, written by Chinua Achebe, talks of the mother of her dying child who continues to take care of him. The poem talks of the horrific conditions in which they had to live and it depicts the death that cannot be avoided and the loss of loved ones. ‘War Photographer’, written by Carol Ann Duffy, describes the inner battle within a war photographer as he returns back home to England after he had completed a tour. He finds it difficult to keep in his feelings as the horror and terror he witnessed resurface in his normal life.