War is brutal; it brings death, sadness and destruction. In Henry Reed poem’s “Naming of parts” and John A McCrae poem’s “In Flanders field”, both authors convey a message of war to the reader through the poem. By using setting, tone and poet, it contrasts with each other. Although the stories contain obvious similarities, it is the differences that are significant. In “naming of parts”, the author shows a sense of resentment toward war; he thinks war is unnecessary. First of all, the setting of “naming of parts” is in a classroom where the teacher is giving a lecture of the rifle and even mimicking the firing process, using the bolt handle to “slide it rapidly backwards and forwards”. Secondly, the tone of the poem is irony and resentful.
The poem ‘Weapons Training’ is written in a monologue style, and is in the viewpoint of one person. The persona in the poem is the drill sergeant. This poem is referring to a drill sergeant yelling at a group of untrained soldiers, as he teaches them on how to use their weapons. He uses a negative tone towards the young soldiers, using language that insults them in the aim to toughen them up. The language the drill sergeant uses is offensive and racist. He furthermore tries to get the soldiers to discover ‘hate’, so they can learn to dislike the enemies and kill ‘the enemies’. He does not portray a charming figure. However, he relishes in the brutal sense of
The powerful poem ‘Weapons Training’ showcases a sergeant, through malicious words, guiding his troops. However it is through ‘Homecoming’, where Dawe exposes the brutal hopelessness brought forth by the futility of war. Therefore it can be seen that war has an emotional toll on both families and the soldiers. Both poems have a recurring message that all war does is bring loss, death and mourning, showcasing Dawes strong opinions about a futile
The poet Wilfred Owen was one of many poets who were against war. He reflected this idea of anti-war in his poems, one of his poems called “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, mirrors most aspects of war all put together in this short still deep poem. An example of that would be when the speaker stated,” What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?”(1) The speaker asks is there any sound that marks our soldier’s death other than the sounds of church bell’s which are mostly rung to represent somebody’s absence? Clearly, the speaker sets anger as the tone of the poem through this question to show that soldier’s death is unremarkable.. The speaker compares the soldiers to a “cattle” which illustrates that soldiers are treated more like animals with no feelings and also shows how they are killed indiscriminately in war. Finally the line ironically contains an iambic pentameter which is a natural rhythm for such dark, grim, dull subject. The two novels, The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, and All Quiet on The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, both present a similar idea of how soldiers are killed out there in the front comprehensively and the dehumanization of war towards its soldiers. The first novel is set during the Civil War, and it focuses on the psychological aspects of one soldier named Henry Fleming and how his naive thoughts about war constantly change through the course of the novel. The second novel presents the life of a soldier named Paul Baumer and his friends who were faced with the terribleness of war and how severely it affected their lives. The Red badge of Courage and All Quiet on The Western Front are similar in the way of how the main characters develop through the novel to change from naïve and innocent men ...
Tim O’Brien states in his novel The Things They Carried, “The truths are contradictory. It can be argued, for instance, that war is grotesque. But in truth war is also beauty. For all its horror, you can’t help but gape at the awful majesty of combat” (77). This profound statement captures not only his perspective of war from his experience in Vietnam but a collective truth about war across the ages. It is not called the art of combat without reason: this truth transcends time and can be found in the art produced and poetry written during the years of World War I. George Trakl creates beautiful images of the war in his poem “Grodek” but juxtaposes them with the harsh realities of war. Paul Nash, a World War I artist, invokes similar images in his paintings We are Making a New World and The Ypres Salient at Night. Guilaume Apollinaire’s writes about the beautiful atrocity that is war in his poem “Gala.”
Nevertheless, one of the most important imageries is the fact the rifle itself represents war; thus, the soldier takes so much care of the rifle because the rifle, or the war, once took great care of him by shaping him into the man he is today and, most importantly, by keeping him alive. Imagery, therefore, proves how Magnus delicately transmits information so that an appropriate characterization could take place, which informs the audience about the soldier’s character and, ultimately, the importance of war to the
In all works about war, the element of pain is essential. Without pain, there is no real happiness. The men described in these works all endured vast amounts of physical and emotional pain on their tours serving the country and the accurate representations of their time overseas wouldn’t be able to be complete without this element.
From sunrise to sunset, day after day, war demolishes men, cities, and hope. War has an effect on soldiers like nothing else, and sticks with them for life. The damage to a generation of men on both sides of the war was inestimable. Both the novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, and the poem “I Have a Rendezvous with Death,” by Alan Seeger, demonstrate the theme of a lost generation of men, mentally and physically, in war through diction, repetition, and personification.
Throughout our history, both recorded and unrecorded, there have been countless violent battles fought. From small skirmishes to full on declarations of war, humans have been involved with battling on another for all the reasons that they have. The only thing alarming is that, as time and technology progresses, the number of casualties and collateral damage have been increasing as well. In addition, the implications to the human mind, brought upon by the excessive violence, can be equally damaging. With that being said, the psychological implications brought upon by war can be reflected in several art forms, such as poetry.
Autobiographies, diaries, letters, official records, photographs and poems are examples of primary sources from World War One. The two primary sources analyzed in this essay are the poems, “Anthem for Doomed Youth” by Wilfred Owen and “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae. Primary sources are often personal, written from the limited perspective of a single individual. It is very difficult for the author to capture their own personal experience, while incorporating the involvement and effects of other events happening at the same time. Each piece of writing studied describes the author’s perception of the war. Both of the poems intend to show to grave reality of war, which often was not realized until the soldiers reach the frontlines. The poems were both written at battle within two years of each other. However, the stark difference between the two poems is astonishing. “Anthem for Doomed Youth” gives a much different impression than “In Flanders Field” despite the fact that both authors were in the same war and similar circumstances. The first two lines in “In Flanders Fields” “…the poppies blow, Between the crosses, row on row.” are an image o...
The first device that stands out about this poem is the point of view. It would be easy for Owen to write this in second person where the reader would feel more drawn into the story and see the horrors of war first hand. However, Owen used third person and slightly detached the reader from the story. The reasons for t...
World War One was a massive event. It affected millions of people from all walks of life, and inspired countless written pieces. Nevertheless, without being there, it is impossible to truly be able to tell what the war is like. Therefore the use of setting is very important in giving the reader an idea of the circumstance. This is not to say that everyone is in agreement over how the war should be displayed. Quite one the contrary, the two Poems “In Flanders Fields” and “Dulce et Decorum Est” use their settings to create two very contrasting images of human conflict.
Martin and the Hand grenade by Australian Poet John Foulcher is a study of conflicts, of innocence and experience, war and a classroom and life and death. Foulcher conveys these ideas through a bleak observational lens whilst a young boy proudly exhibits a war era hand grenade in class whilst his peers are left in awe. The following questions that arise within the classroom relating to the mortality rate and power of the grenade emphasise the barbarity of war and its corrupting effects as words of violence are expelled from previously innocent vessels. The poem subsequently explores the theme of conflicts both internally and externally to comment on war and how the ends never justify the means. War has no magnitude other than to corrupt innocence
The use of poetry devices helps to highlight the different voices in “Naming of Parts”. The literal diction of the first speaker versus the abstract imagery of the second helps to indicate the personalities of the two speakers. The two speaker have different tones, which create different implications, and when they converge, their contrasts help create new interpretations of both speakers. The rhythmic and sound devices that Henry Reed uses in his poem help to unify both speakers and their lines into one whole poem. Although these one of these two speakers takes a literal approach to life, and the other speaker sees life in abstract ideas, in the end, they still are joined by the same concepts used in the poem.
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
The three narratives “Home Soil” by Irene Zabytko, “Song of Napalm” by Bruce Weigl, and “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen all have the same feelings of war and memory, although not everyone experiences the same war. Zabytko, Weigl, and Owen used shifting beats, dramatic descriptions, and intense, painful images, to convince us that the horror of war far outweighs the devoted awareness of those who fantasize war and the memories that support it.