“Feeling sorry for her”. Kate Daniels uses the iconic photo of the child, hurt in a napalm attack on a Vietnam village who is screaming in pain and fear, to show the extent of the suffering that innocent civilians have to go through in war time. She wants people to be aware of the pain and to show what the reality is like for them in the war, focusing on the horrors in particular. The poem uses this to instil emotions such as sympathy and compassion but also to make people feel appalled by the war. She asserts that all over the world, people are “being appalled at the war”. The poem foregrounds the human suffering and by showing this, she tries to make the Americans feel guilty for causing all this pain to millions of innocent people in Vietnam. Daniels reiterates this by criticizing the human response to war further on in the poem. “How can she know what we really are?” As the child is young, she is naïve to the world around her and therefore does not know how cruel people can be. The narrator is speaking on behalf of all the Americans in the country who believe the war is their responsibility. She uses the words “terribly human” in juxtaposition as a way of illustrating the two sides of humanity. Children tend to look to adults for help as the word “human” implies generosity, kindness and compassion. However, the word “terribly” has a negative feeling and either can mean ‘very’ or can show how awful something can be. Using these words together shows that what humans look like on the outside is not the same as what is in the inside; it contains both meanings simultaneously.
The photo of the young child running shows the desperation of her need. “Her arms stretched out” gives the reader the idea that the girl is running t...
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...n “War Photographer”, the line “Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh,” indicates that Duffy has a wider perspective of the war in which she is talking about war in general and the fact that it is happening everywhere in the world. This can be more effective because if people are reading about wars that are happening all over the world, they may become more aware of the shocking calamity that is war. The pace and the language used in each of these poems create another contrast between them. Daniels uses colloquial language with a quick pace, making the poem more conversational and focuses on the child’s naïve view. Duffy, however, uses a more formal approach with a slower pace to represent the photographer reflecting and her complex ideas and imagery shows his intellectual view on war.
Works Cited
War Photograph - Kate Daniels
War Photographer - Carol Ann Duffy
Poetry has been used for centuries as a means to explore emotions and complex ideas through language, though individuals express similar ideas in wholly different forms. One such idea that has been explored through poetry in numerous ways is that of war and the associated loss, grief, and suffering. Two noted Australian poets shown to have accomplished this are Kenneth Slessor with his work ‘Beach Burial’ and John Schumann’s ‘I Was Only Nineteen’. Both of these works examine the complexities of conflict, but with somewhat different attitudes.
"A picture is worth a thousand words," we say. From the eyes and mind of the archivist studying the pictures of Robert Ross' experience with war, they are worth a lot more. The photographs in the epilogue of Timothy Findley's "The Wars" play an important role in Findley establishing both a trust with the reader, and a sense of realism to his war story. This satisfies the need for realism in his tale. The result of this image that is brought forth through the medium of the photograph, is that we are forced to see the "before" and "after" of Roberts "experience" and figure out our way through what is deposited in between: the cause and effect.
...ntation in 20th century war poetry undoubtedly shapes its type and purpose, be it for nationalistic propaganda or to prompt a global paradigm shift, the purpose can be seen to stem largely from the author’s involvement in combat or war life. Authors such as Owen Seaman, who have no first hand experience of the content of their poems, create patriotic propaganda in an attempt to keep young men enlisting, and others such as Rupert Brooke who exemplify blind optimism and nationalistic intentions in a romanticised view of what it would be to die.
...ed by the ancient symbol of fear, conveys the child's panic. The mother's approach is a source of terror for the child, written as if it is a horror movie, suspense created with the footsteps, the physical embodiment of fear, the doorknob turns. His terror as 'he tries to run' but 'her large hands hold him fast' is indicative of his powerless plight. The phrase, 'She loves him...' reiterates that this act signifies entrapment as there is no reciprocation of the ‘love’. It is ironic that her love is deemed 'the frightening fact'. Clearly this form of love will destroy his innocence, his freedom to think for himself, his ability to achieve emotional fulfilment. We sense the overpowering, suffocating nature of this form of love, but also the nature of American cultural imperialism, which is similarly stifling to the development of national identity and fulfilment.
War can not be fully described in just words, humans have to experience it to know how it really is. In passage 1 from “The Things They Carried”, a fictional memoir by Tim O'brien, the narrator describes the contradictory nature of war. O’brien uses rhetorical strategies to characterize the experience of war. O’brien uses imagery, anaphora, and paradox to guide readers understand the experience of war through fictional writing.
I am going to compare and contrast the two poems ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ by Wilfred Owen and ‘War Photographer’ by Carol Ann Duffy. They both give a view of war. Owen gives first hand experiences he witnessed whilst fighting in World War One and where he unfortunately died one week before the war came to an end. Carol Ann Duffy may be writing about the feelings of her personal friends who were war photographers, showing some of the horrors they witnessed.
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.
The poem has been written as four uneven stanzas this has been done purposefully to express how unpredictable war is. With the varying lengths of stanzas the breaks become unexpected in the poem; the reader is given the impression of how erratic war is, only given short moments of respite, with no predictability throughout the years on the frontline. Owen begins his work with a strong use of imagery to portray the conditions and the state of the soldiers. By using similes such as “like old beggars under sacks” and “coughing like hags” the reader is able to clearly visualize the state of the soldiers. This is also how Owen describes the state of the condition in which they were fighting in “we cursed through sludge”. These lines provide the reader with a very distinct vision of what was occurring. After this the poem describes a gas attack and the fear that the men felt. “Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumb...
Chaos and drudgery are common themes throughout the poem, displayed in its form; it is nearly iambic pentameter, but not every line fits the required pattern. This is significant because the poem’s imperfect formulation is Owen making a statement about formality, the poem breaks the typical form to show that everything is not functioning satisfactorily. The poem’s stanza’s also begin short, but become longer, like the speaker’s torment and his comrades movement away from the open fire. The rhyming scheme of ABABCDCD is one constant throughout the poem, but it serves to reinforce the nature of the cadence as the soldiers tread on. The war seems to drag on longer and longer for the speaker, and represents the prolonged suffering and agony of the soldier’s death that is described as the speaker dwells on this and is torn apart emotionally and distorts his impressions of what he experiences.
In “War Photographer”, Duffy illustrates the wrongful killings and heart wrenching deaths that the war photographer had to witness. The photographer took pictures of constant death from his surroundings and Duffy shows how he managed to deal with that and she highlights his sadness and grief from his experience. A line from the poem that says, “how the blood stained into foreign dust” is clear evidence that there was death taking place on the battleground. Duffy uses the words “foreign dust” to describe that there was a conflict in another country, which meant th...
middle of paper ... ... Ultimately, we have two poems which can be compared on the grounds of their subject, but are poles apart regarding their message. The structure of these poems is not what would be typically expected from a war poem, but are structured on the basis of these typical structures in order to create some sense of familiarity.
‘’War Photographer’’ is a thought-provoking and mind gripping poem by Carol Ann Duffy. The poem revolves around the life of the photographer as he juggles between his two personas as he try to develop his photos and reminisce about the war torn countries, all the innocent people and the horrific and gory things he has witnessed. As the poem progresses and the pictures begin to develop the memories of pain and suffering from his past starts to unravel and becomes clearer and clearer. The main message the writer is trying to convey is the fact that through modern times news about the war is being published by the media in a truthful way that people feel less sympathy towards the innocent lives of the people dying all around the world. The writer effectively raises questions about our feelings and emotions that we feel towards war and death.
The poetic techniques used in Wilfred Owen’s war poetry sweep the reader from the surface of knowing to the essence of truly appreciating his ideas. Through sonnets, Para rhymes, ironic titles, voices and strong imagery, not only is the reader able to comprehend to the futility and the horrors of the Great War, but also they can almost physically and mentally empathise with those who fought. Through the three poems examined, it is evident that Owen goes to great effort to describe the conditions and thoughts of the First World War, thus his works are considered an invaluable asset to the modern literature.
In conclusion, Owen only loosely bases the structure of this free-verse poem on the iambic pentameter. The comparison of the past and the present emphasizes on what the soldier has lost in war. There are several recurring themes shown throughout the poem, such as reminiscence and sexual frustration. Reminiscence is shown through the references to his life before the war, while sexual frustration is depicted through the unlikeliness of a girl ever loving him due to his disability. The message that Owen is trying to get across to his readers is the falseness of war propaganda and pacifism – what war can do to one - and he conveys his ideas using various themes, language and through the free-verse structure of this poem.
‘The Falling Soldier’ is one of many poems by Duffy which deals with the subject of human mortality. Duffy expresses what could have been over a harsh reality; this is characteristic of her as also seen in ‘Last Post’ and ‘Passing Bells’ which both seem to be largely influenced by poet peer Wilfred Owen’s personal experiences of war. In the ‘The Falling Soldier’ Duffy paradoxically captures the essence of Robert Capa’s famous photograph of a man falling after being shot during the Spanish Civil War (1936). She employs the form of an impersonal narrative voice, using second person to question the possibilities, to explore the tragic and cyclical nature of war. The futile reality of war contrasts to her central theme in ‘The Bees’ anthology of bees symbolising the grace left in humanity.