Compare and contrast how Wilfred Owen and Isobel Thrilling portray the

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Compare and contrast how Wilfred Owen and Isobel Thrilling portray the

horror, suffering and inevitable disillusionment of war in their

respective poems.

The two poets that I am going to compare and contrast in this essay

both write from a different perspective of the war. They are writing

about different poems, Owen writes about the 1st world war and

Thrilling the 2nd. Both poets are in a different setting when they

write these poems, Thrilling is back at home whereas Owen is in the

middle of the action, he is in the battlefield. This makes his poems

more vivid and realistic. Owen was an adult at this stage and writes

it from a soldier's point of view, however Thrilling writes from a

child's point of view.

The poems that I am going to write about are "Dulce et Decorum est.",

"Disabled", "Children in wartime" and "Evacuee". "Dulce et Decorum

est." written by Owen and "Evacuee" which is written by Thrilling are

very similar in that they are both very subtle and use somber imagery.

However the other two poems are much more vivid and attack the reader.

The first poem I am going to write about is "Dulce et Decorum est". It

has an angry and bitter tone throughout. Owen describes the soldier's

as "old, weak and frail. "This shows us the extreme conditions of war.

Soldiers were not though of as weak and frail so it is ironic. The war

was very gruesome and horrid; we can see this from onomatopoeic words

in the poem such as "sludge". There is a homeless image given in the

first line through a similie, "like old beggars". The war is portrayed

as a routine and this is shown through the rhyming.

The words "haunting and frightening" are used to symbolise soldiers

like ghosts and maybe already dead? This can al...

... middle of paper ...

...r, this makes it similar to "Children in

wartime". They're also similar because "Dulce et decorum est" talks

about a group of soldiers and "Children in wartime" is a children's

collective voice. "Disabled" and "Evacuee" are similar because they

are subtle and detailed. They are also about isolation and reflect the

lives of individuals.

From my point of view You can not possibly say that one poet is more

effective than the other. However their contrasting styles affect the

reader in different ways. Owen with far more vivid poetry, and much

more hostility towards women and the reader. But Thrilling with a much

more emotional and sympathetic style. I think that Owen attacks the

reader and questions the meaning of war directly, but Thrilling evokes

sympathy for the innocence of children. Thrilling also questions he

meaning of war but it is much more subtle.

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