The poem entitles Attack is a haunting poem describing the terrors and realities of warfare. It has an effective emotional impact on the reader through the way it expresses the negativity of war through its imagery. Seeing as imagery is a key aspects of the poem attack, it is what helps get across the strong message Siegfried Sassoon was delivering.
Siegfried Sassoon’s use of colour to describe certain aspects of the environment, was very effective. He used colour to describe the sun. He described it as a “wild purple”. The wild purple suggests a very dark and sinister environment. Even though this could have a very ominous meaning, he could also be describing the sun and referring to its beauty and how it contributes to the beautiful scenery. “In
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“And hope, with furtive eyes” Throughout the horrors of the war, the soldiers somehow managed to stay hopeful. Although they were very hopeful, they were still suffering. “Flounders in mud” As they floundered in mud, it could suggest that they were struggling to survive like the way a fish flounders when t struggles to survive out of water, its preferred environment. Just like that, the soldiers were struggling to survive out of their preferred environment which at that moment was the trenches. “O Jesus, make it stop!” As the soldiers screamed begging for the horror to stop, the reader realises how much they are suffering. You begin to sympathise with the soldiers seeing as you realise how they were strong enough physically and emotionally to go to war. However, they are screaming and crying, begging for Jesus to make it stop because they realise at that point that there is nothing that can save them other than something supernatural that takes a lot of faith to believe in. As they begged for the torture to stop, you realise if people tough enough to sign up for the war are begging for it to stop; how would anyone else
In the poem “At The Somme: A Song of the Mud” by a woman named Mary Borden, the author describes what really happens during battle to help reader realize the terrible conditions soldiers must endure. At the beginning of the poem, the author explains how the mud in the war zone is very difficult to deal with. The mud gets in the way of everything and makes fighting hard. The explains that it gets in the way by saying, “His coat that once was blue and now is grey and stiff with the mud that cakes it.”
Jarrell concludes his poem and his metaphor with an impactful line five and six. “I woke to black flak and the nightmare of fighters When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.” The literal imagery in line five depicts the final moments of the gunners life. In describing them as “black” and “nightmare” he conveys the horror of this particular end. Jarrell concludes his poem and his metaphor with an impactful line five and six. “I woke to black flak and the nightmare of fighters When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.” The literal imagery in line five depicts the final moments of the gunners life. In describing them as “black” and “nightmare” he conveys the horror of this particular end. This sense of horror extends into his impactful final line describing being washed out of the turret with a
“In many cases a true war story cannot be believed. If you believe it, be skeptical. Often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isn’t, because the normal stuff is necessary to make you believe the truly incredible craziness.” Pg. 71 This is very true. It follows the saying “You can’t handle the truth” because if one hears it, they think it’s a lie, or the truth being stretched. The use of imagery allows the author to express the emotion he had when he was at war.
Towards the end of the story I kind of felt just as the soldiers did, weighed down and dead tired. The second half of the story leaned toward the emotional burdens the soldiers went through besides the physical quantities.
Paul says, “ Our knowledge of life is limited to death”(Remarque, All quiet n the Western front). The main character and his classmates were only nineteen and twenty when they enlisted to go to war. Even before going to war the only thing these young men knew was death, cruelty, suffering and hopelessness. War forces men to be in constant fear for their lives. When they are in the war front they are not fighting for their countries, they are fighting for their own lives. Remarque writes about how the war has a destroying effect on the mental and physical health of the soldiers. Also, it makes them feel hopeless and sacred, they do not have any hope for a future after the war. Therefore, soldiers that were fighting the World War I disconnect themselves from their emotions to survive the horrible situation the war they were fighting. “We want to live at any price; so we cannot burden ourselves with feelings which, though they may be ornamental enough in peacetime, would be out of place here”(Remarque, All quiet on the Western front). Remarque in this quote shows how soldiers are coping mentally with the burden of war. All soldiers have a great bond of friendship and loyalty since they all share the experiences of
Throughout the poem the extended metaphor can be seen. The speaker is comparing the characters that are in the novel to the fallen soldiers and to those helpless men who have lost in the war which they were fighting. The speaker says, “and some fall forgotten” to remember those who have unfortunately lost and “trench work” to imply the military and war setting that’s taking place. The characters the author is trying to create are soldiers who are simply looking up to the novelist for further instructions all the while the novelist is conflicted and is having trouble writing and giving them the instructions that they need. The characters view the novelist like a god-type figure. This shows how the novelist is under so much pressure. This also helps highlight the difficult process that the novelist is going through to which the speaker is also sympathizing with. The pressure that he needs to give his best to his characters and make them to the best of his capability but still being realistic and giving those flaws is really a hard task for the novelist. He is having trouble balancing
In this poem there are military contexts like “death lane” which portray through visual imagery images such as trench fighting.
I lie huddled in a large shell-hole, my legs in the water up to the belly. When the attack starts, I will let myself fall into the water, with my face as deep in the mud as I can keep it without suffocating. I must pretend to be dead.” These soldiers went to extremes to save themselves from the raging war. Not only soldiers but officers of the army had come under the great influence of fear.
Each soldiers experience in the war was devastating in its own way. The men would go home carrying the pictures and memories of their dead companions, as well as the enemy soldiers they killed. “They all carried emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing- these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight.” These were the things that weighed the most, the burdens that the men wanted to put down the most, but were the things that they would forever carry, they would never find relief from the emotional baggage no matter where they went.
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 ...
Through reading this poem several times I decided that the message from the poem is that war is full of horror and there is little or no glory. Methods which I found most effective were Full rhyme and metaphor.
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
Many war pieces express a distinct sense of truth, hatred, and anger that can be found in the style, tone, and imagery they possess. Incredible images are created in ones mind as war writings are read and heard. Works written by such writers as Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, and Tim OBrien really reach out to the audience by way of the authors choice of words and images that they use in their writing. These talented writers create very touching and heart-felt images as they write about the true occurrences, problems, feelings and emotions that soldiers encountered throughout times of war. It is by way of these writers words that the bloody truth of war is heard, rather than the glorified victories heard which overlook the pain that soldiers went through.
Sassoon shows many examples of how the soldier in this poem gets pulled back into war-like terrors by meaningless things. The soldier is simply sitting in his home yet gets flashbacks of war and it haunts him. In this poem Sassoon is using a soldier as the example of repression as someone who has experienced war and the impacts it has on life after. “The poetic evolution related directly to Sassoon 's war experiences was initially gradual. His poetry became more serious and evocative in the early days of the war, but continued to inhabit the fatal logic of soldierly glory in poetic uniform” Avi Matalon claims (30). Poetry was influenced greatly by World War I and left poets creating new pieces that they never would have imagined
This has the effect of making the image vivid for the reader, as he can almost visualise the conflict. The effect of the military imagery emphasised through words such as ‘besiege’ and ‘trenches ‘backs this idea further and suggests almost. there is an ongoing war against time. This is additionally reflected. through ‘dig deep’, which through the use of alliteration brings the.