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Poetic techniques of wilfred owen essay
How Does Wilfred Owen Use Language and Poetic Devices
Wilfred owen poetic technique examples
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Wilfred Owen’s ‘The Sentry’
To me Wilfred Owen’s poetry is visually descriptive, so much so that he seems to be able to effortlessly transport you into whatever situation he is describing.
This particular poem leaves you in no doubt as to the horrors of war and the terrible atrocities these poor men endured.
In the opening line he says ‘and he knew’ using the technique of personalisation he has turned the massive opposing force into a single person, someone who was actively trying to single them out, to attack them personally. This shows you just how desperate they felt and how to them no matter where they seemed to find shelter ‘he’ was never far behind.
He goes on to say ‘and gave us hell for shell on frantic shell hammered on top, but never quite got through’. By using the word ‘hell’ he is actively describing the terrible endlessness of their situation or the perseverance of the enemy and the fact that they cannot escape. enduring the onslaught, hour on hour, day by day.
‘Frantic shell’ the word frantic to me describes the non-target based shelling, as the enemy knew they that their enemy was somewhere in front of them, so just seemed to shell anywhere within that vicinity in the sure hope that they would be causing death eventually. The use of the rhyming words ‘hell’ and ‘shell’ automatically connects the two words in the reader’s brain, forming a connection and reinforcing the idea of the battle being ‘hell’.
‘Hammered’is also a very thought provoking verb used in this line, this word used in this particular sentence is brilliant, it not only describes the noise, as you cannot hammer quietly, but describes the repetition, when hammering something you repeatedly strike it. Hammered is a violent verb and its two syllables makes the word sound short and harsh.
In the following line, ‘rain, guttering down’ this makes me think the guttering I have on my house, a purpose made moulded channel used to transport water. He deliberately used this word to convey just how much rain had fallen that it had naturally moulded gutters out of the mud, channelling the slime and slurry into waterfalls. There is also assonance in this sentence emphasising the guttering (which I have already analysed above).
Wilfred Owen is cleverly able to relate to you a description of a bomb without ever actually calling it a bomb.
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
...al but couldn’t, when they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads and said Dear Jesus and flopped around on the earth and fired their weapons blindly ”(104). Along with daily life, the soldiers carried their reputations and “the fear of blushing” (105). At any moment they could have abandoned the war and gone home to life, love, and a warm bed, but they never did. This was not out of courage, but rather the soldiers were just too afraid to be cowards.
Throughout the times war has effected people immensely both physically and mentally. All people deal with their circumstances differently to help cope with what they dealing with. Whether it’s a fatality in the family, or post traumatic stress disorder most people find a way to heal from injury or emotional damage. In Brian Turners poem, “Phantom Noise,” he writes about the constant ringing he hears from the war he served in. The poem expresses that Turner seems to deal with his emotional damage by writing poetry about what he feels, hears, and sees during the time he spent in war and in civilian life. Even though Turner is no longer in war it still effects him greatly each day. The overall tone of the poem is very solemn and makes the reader
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.
Edwards says,“...the devil is waiting for them, hell is gaping for them, their flames gather and flash about them..." This establishes a place of horror and frightens the people in the audience. The words devil, hell, flames, and flash exemplify a world of misery that no one would want to live. More importantly, it makes the experience of hell so realistic and effective that people would want to change decisions on what to believe on.
The images drawn in this poem are so graphic that it could make readers feel sick. For example, in these lines: "If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood/ Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs/ Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud,"(21-23) shows us that so many men were brutally killed during this war. Also, when the gas bomb was dropped, "[s]omeone still yelling out and stumbling/ [a]nd flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.../ [h]e plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning."(11-12,16) These compelling lines indicate that men drowned helplessly in the toxic gasses. These graphic images are very disturbing but play a very effective role in the development of the poem.
Overall Wilfred Owen shows that there is no triumph in war, he does this by using the dying soldier as an example. His main point is that the old saying: “Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori” is a lie.
World War One had an inevitable effect on the lives of many young and naive individuals, including Wilfred Owen, who, like many others, joined the military effort with the belief that he would find honour, wealth and adventure. The optimism which Owen initially had toward the conflict is emphasised in the excerpt, in which he is described as “a young poet…with a romantic view of war common among the young” (narrator), a view which rapidly changed upon reaching the front. Owen presents responders with an overwhelming exploration of human cruelty on other individuals through acts of war and the clash of individual’s opposed feelings influenced by the experiences of human cruelty. This is presented through the horrific nature of war which the
Owen expands on the shelling in lines 3 and 4, noting, “Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle/ can patter out their hasty orisons” (Lines 3 and 4). Owen repeats “only” to build momentum and to truly explain the sounds of the guns. He uses alliteration in “rifles’ rapid rattle” and onomatopoeia in “stuttering” and “rattle” to imitate the harsh and repetitive sounds of rifles. The alliteration creates a sense of the rapidity and frequency of the firing. Owen again personifies the guns, this time by using “stuttering” like the stutter of people. To him, the guns represent people and the people appear as animals. He compares the shelling to the guns rattling out prayers. Ironically, these prayers do not help the soldiers; they wound or kill
Owen’s poem uses symbolism to bring home the harsh reality of war the speaker has experienced and forces the reader to think about the reality presented in romanticized poetry that treats war gently. He utilizes language that imparts the speakers experiences, as well as what he, his companions, and the dying man feels. People really die and suffer and live through nightmares during a war; Owen forcefully demonstrates this in “Dulce et Decorum Est”. He examines the horrific quality of World War I and transports the reader into the intense imagery of the emotion and experience of the speaker.
Wilfred Owen wrote about the distilled pity of war from his first-hand experience. Owen concisely features the carnage and destruction of war in both the poems, ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ and ‘Strange Meeting’ Owen uses these poems document the psychological and physical debilitation of war. In ‘Dulce et Decorum est’, Owen uses a various amount of literary techniques to visually depict the cruel and grotesque death from the mustard gas whereas ‘Strange Meeting’, portrays the speaker in conversation with a dead soldier that he is presumably responsible for killing, symbolically which emphasises the effect of the wartime trauma. Wilfred Owen’s poetry effectively highlights the carnage and destruction of war to educate the audience on the disillusionment of war.
...ow that people do not want to take responsibility to what is happening at the war that they want to remain indifferent and not be an actor in making decisions for what is to occur. This line could also refer to the grief people feel that even behind closed doors that there is much grief being experienced. It makes the reader question what happens after the war is over, how do the families continue after the death of a loved one?
Wilfred Owen was an officer in World War I, who was sent to a hospital because he suffered from "shellshock". There, he met poet Siegfried Sassoon, who played a part in influencing him to write poetry about war and the suffering of soldiers. He later returned to the war, where he was killed. ' '
This is a metaphor comparing the poet’s voice to the wind. The poet uses these two metaphors to draw comparisons between himself and the
According to Jesus hell known only one sound, the “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 22:13). From hell comes a woeful, unending moan as its inhabitants realize the opportunity they have missed. What the would give for one more chance. But that chance is gone (Hebrews 9:27). ***Max Lucado***