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The effect of world war ii on american literature pdf
The effect of world war ii on american literature pdf
The effect of world war ii on american literature pdf
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Owen wants his readers to think about the harsh conditions of war, and understanding the tragedy and sad emotions of soldiers who wouldn’t get the last laugh since many of them die. To reference the title of the poem, Wilfred describes the weapons getting the last laugh at the end of each stanza. In “The Last Laugh,” Owen identifies the way in which the weapons have more power versus religion, family, and love. According to line 3, “The Bullets chirped -- In vain, vain, vain!,” the bullets are mocking his religion. The weapons might have hit the soldier to make him curse at God and be in vain. Therefore, the soldier would be punished and the weapons would laugh at him. In line 4, “Machine guns chuckled -- Tut-tut! Tut-tut!,” the sound that …show more content…
The tone is bitter and intense in a realistic way. It is achieved by the vivid and gruesome images in the poem. Wilfred Owen 's use of imagery in this poem is by depicting emotional, nightmarish, and vivid words to capture the haunting encounters of WWI that soldiers went through. In the first stanza, Owen depicts his fellow soldiers struggling through the battlefield, but their terrible health conditions prevent them from their strong actions in the war. When Owen says, “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, knock-kneed, coughing like hags” (lines 1-2). This provides the readers with an unexpected view and appearance of soldiers, as they usually picture as strong, noble, and brawny-looking men. Soldiers sacrifice themselves to fight for their country and are exhausted from their unhealthy lifestyle. In lines 7-8, “Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots of gas-shells dropping softly behind,” they have lost the facade of humanity and their bodies are all wearied and weak on their march. This reveals a glimpse at the soldiers’ actions, as well as inferring to a psychological effect of the war. Then in line 5, “Men marched asleep,” the author is making abnormality to be one of the major purposes of the war, that it …show more content…
He became widely recognized as a British poet for his experience and impressions upon World War I. He was the eldest out of the four in his family. His father worked in the railway, and his mother was strict in her religious beliefs yet still had affection for her children. In Owen’s christian household, they practiced biblical themes and teachings. They seem to be a very close-knit family and protect each other. He also utilized Christian imagery in his poetry as well as strengthening his faith in his religion. After serving in the war regiment for eight months, he teamed up with a fellow officer to design an improvement of the gas mask. Then a year later, he wrote the poem “Dulce Et Decorum Est,” in which an episode of the lethal gas occurs that kills soldiers. According to the Encyclopedia of World Biography it says, “Although the poem describes the senseless horrors of war, its title ironically evokes a Latin quotation from Horace: "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori," or "Sweet and decorous it is to die for one 's country."” When he suffered a concussion from a fall and later was diagnosed with shell shock and trench fever, he went back home to England for further care. His own impression of the war reveals to be bitter since he struggled a lot and was injured severely. In that time he was recovering, Owen met “Siegfried Sassoon, an army captain and an established poet who wrote passionately of his
This segment of Owen’s poem depicts one of his comrades being poisoned by tear gas; this is clearly not a pleasant sight and is not wished upon anyone. This is of particular interest to me because it depicts the morbid horror of war. I believe the poem does a fine job of communicating the horrors of war much better than other modes of literature may be able to. It also challenges a lot of the idealistic feelings people have towards those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.
The speaker chooses words such as “bent double, like old baggers” and “knock-kneed” (Owens 1-2) to expose the discomfort and effects that war has on young soldiers. The soldiers are discreetly compared to crippled old men, which emphasizes just how badly war has affected their bodies, stripping them of their health, making them weak and helpless like “old beggars” (Owen 1). Furthermore, the speaker expresses his experience as a soldier when he says, “Men marched asleep [.]/ Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind” (Owen 5, 7-8).... ... middle of paper ...
In ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’, Owen compares the solders who are men to ugly, old, sick women through the simile “coughing like hags”, highlighting that the men no longer possess strength, masculinity, exceptional physical skills and potency. As a result, the soldiers’ eradicated youth and innocence portrays the dehumanising effect that the soldier’s have faced through their experiences of the war. Additionally, Owen further explores this dehumanising effect through the exaggerated movement of the soldiers in the hyperbolic metaphor “We cursed through sludge”, illustrating the ghastly and gruesome environment made up of a mix of materials such as body parts of other fellow soldiers, blood and mud. The horrendous conditions the soldiers faced for a long period of time had a drastic impact on the soldier’s mental health which in turn lead to post-traumatic stress disorder or shell-shock disorder and lost of potency. Owen also portrays that not only did the war affect a few soldiers, but all the soldiers through the repetition of “all”. Ultimately, it is conveyed that the soldiers had to unwillingly sacrifice their human attributes and was dehumanised as a result of human conflict. Similarly, in ‘The Next War’, Owen
The poem is divided into three sections with each part dealing with a different stage of the experience. In the first stanza, Owen describes the state the soldiers are in. The first line states that the platoon is “Bent double, like old beggars” (1). This gives the reader a vision that they are exhausted and compares them to the look of beggars on the street, who often times, look very ragged and shabby. The line “coughing like o...
Just as the poem is written in a rhyme and rhythm that makes poetry easy to follow, the vivid imagery helps one to picture more easily what is going on in the poem. Owen brilliantly chooses words and phrases that illuminate the scene, making the reader feel as if he is physically in the scene along with the characters. For example, Owen describes that the Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots/ But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;/ Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots/ Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind (Gioia 782). A feeling of sadness and pity is felt as one hears the previous words. It is almost as if the scene of the soldiers trudging through the battlefield is being painted for the reader to actually visually ...
The similes and metaphors used by Owen illustrate very negative war scenes throughout the poem, depicting extreme suffering of young men fighting during World War I. The first simile used by Owen describes the soldiers as “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks”, giving them sickly, wounded, and exhausted attributes from battle and lack of rest (1). Next, the soldiers are described as “Knock-kneed, coughing like hags”, which once again portrays these young men as sick...
...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.
He starts the poem describing his fellow soldiers and himself as beggers, knock-kneed, coughing like ugly old women, cursed through a wet and horrible earth; feeling hatred towards the earth. As they began to march towards their distant rest point. Owen states “Many had lost their boots, but limped on, blood-shod;” saying how some were missing parts of their uniforms, mainly their boots and as they marched on the blood on their cuts had clotted creating a protecting shield in substitute for their boots. As they moved on they were tired, so tired Owen describes the feeling as “…blind; drunk with fatigue”. Moved past the Five-Nine attacks they were then attacked by gas bombs. When Owen states “Gas! GAS! Quick boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling, fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;” he shows us how even when they soldiers only had enough energy to keep walking they had to dig deep and find the strength to place their gas masks on to get through the gas attack. While going through that Owen tells us how not everyone had enough strength to get their mask on and all he heard was yelling out and as he watched one soldier through his dim, misty, thick green light as he was drowning on dry land from poison; “as under a green sea, I saw him drowning”. Owen goes on to outline how this soldier plunges at him for help
In ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’. Owen, throughout the poem, creates the impression of the trenches for the reader and stanza one helps to set the scene. The soldiers, who have been fighting for a long time in the trenches, are finally returning to their billets to rest. The exhaustion of the men is shown here through similes which compare the men to old beggars and hags, ‘like beggars under sacks’ and ‘coughing like hags’, although they were young men, showing just how exhausted they were and the effects the war is having on them physically. Also, the men are ‘blood-shod’ which makes them seem more like horses than human beings. Owen also uses metaphors in stanza one to describe the terrible tiredness the men were suffering from, ‘men marched asleep’. The stanza describes how the poor conditions of the trenches are putting a strain on the soldiers, until they are ‘knock-kneed’ and having to ‘trudge’ through the ‘sludge’ to get to their place of rest. They are ‘drunk with fatigue’ and limping with wounds or loss of boots. This stanza also illustrates the ...
The words Owen chooses to use in the poem describing the soldiers are peculiar choices. The speaker refers to them as “[b]ent double, like beggars in sacks” (line 1), very different from a typical idea of a soldier. From the beginni...
Owen opens his poem with a strong simile that compares the soldiers to old people that may be hunch-backed. ‘Bent double, like old beggars like sacks.’ ‘like sacks’ suggests the image that the soldiers are like homeless people at the side of a street that is all dirty. This highlights that the clothes they were wearing were al...
... shells “wailing” their “shrill, demented” mourning. The last sounds these soldiers are forced to listen to are their killers’ ridiculing at their naïve decision to fight. Weapons in Owen’s poems are personified to mock the war and reinforce its futility.
It goes through the worst parts of the war and describes them in detail. The horrors in these descriptions contradict the glorification of the war The poem consists of four stanzas, the first describes the soldiers, the second a gas attack, the third Owen’s nightmares and last an accusation to the people back home. Owen’s poems are suffused with the horror of battle, and yet finely structured and innovative. The first stanza sets the scene as it describes the conditions the men fought in and their feelings. Owen immediately shocks the readers by describing the young soldiers as ‘bent double’ emphasising their exhaustion and the way they slump along, deformed by fatigue, I think this is an effective simile because no one back home will be expecting their proud soldiers described as beggars.
In the first stanza Owen uses strong metaphors and similes to convey a meaningful warning. The first line, “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks”, describes the soldiers tremendous exhaustion. They have been brought down to a beggar’s level and are being compared to low society. To reinforce this the speaker says, “And towards our distant rest began to trudge” (3). Everything seemed farther and so the troops desire for relaxation and peace. Owen uses metaphors:”Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots/B...
Owen who experienced the war himself writes the truth about war through his poems without dramatizing it. A powerful argument against the complacency of those who believe war to be a glorious patriotic duty is mounted by Owen. He is also succeeded in portraying the reality of the war—the boredom, the helplessness of the people in the war through his writings. Instead of direct description of the anger and frustration of the people due to the devastation of war, Owen euphemistically delivers his messages by painting vivid imaginaries through his tonal, point of view, sentence struct...