Essay Comparing Dulce Et Decorum Est And The Last Night

Dulce et Decorum Est and The Last Night both convey the bittersweet pity of war in two very different, yet simultaneously similar ways. The way that these pieces of literature operate is starkly contrasting, and to some extent, reflects upon the nature and intent with which they were written. For example, in Dulce et Decorum Est, Owen was writing to protest against the atrocious conditions to which “children ardent for some desperate glory” were being sent to, and for this, he used extremely graphic and striking imagery to evoke emotions of disgust and repulsion into the reader, which would hopefully bring them to understand and appreciate Owen’s viewpoint. One unequivocally parallel aspect of both of these pieces of creative writing is the

Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est is very up-front about the circumstances of war, and uses very little subtle language in his poem, instead preferring to stir up powerful emotions in the reader. He uses two key tools to achieve this aim: vivid literary devices, and an effective choice of words/language. These combine to create chilling images which create their own niche in the reader’s mind. To illustrate this, instead of saying simply that the young men fighting the war take on the appearance of old men, he says “bent double, like old beggars under sacks.” Apart from adding more spice to the poem, there are lots of different connotations to the choice of words that Owen chooses to use. He gives the impression that the proud, valiant, patriotic young soldiers have been bent into something that no longer resembles

Faulks also focuses more on the civilian aspect of the war, whereas Owen talks of the military aspect considerably more. The protagonists of the extract are two Jewish brothers called Andre and Jacob, who are destined for the concentration camps. What is interesting is that these two boys are not fully aware of the gravity of their situation, but the reader is, and this is the first instance of irony being used in the poem. Faulks goes on to use irony throughout his prose, such as the situation where the French guard was helping the baby onto the train, which on the surface might seem like a gentlemanly thing to do, until you realise that the train is taking the baby to its death. In fact, you could argue that the whole extract itself is just one big example of irony, because the passengers themselves only have sketchy details of what awaits them (hence their rioting doesn’t break out into chaos), but as the reader, we actually know about concentration camps and the abomination that they are, so we can visualise exactly what will happen to