Death Of A Toad Poem Analysis

This elegy is ultimately written for all soldiers of war and sends the ironic message that the soilders who have fought against each other and could have killed each other are now all floating on the same coastline receiving equal treatment and being buried with their enemy. The theme of anonymity is extensively portrayed throughout this piece as Slessor constantly refers to ‘unknown’ soldiers or ‘someone’. Slessor uses personification and dehumanization to depict the loss of identity within each of the soldiers and the obscured effects of war to show the continuous movement forward of the world despite losses and victories. Personification is shown in the second stanza, 'Between the sob and clubbing of the gunfire '; the use of this technique ironically emphasises that the guns seem to mourn the loss more than humanity does. This leaves the audience feeling distraught and pity for the soldiers as it gives them a sense of the emotions linked to war.

Likewise just the few words of “the sight of hundreds of men on crutches” puts a scary and grave image into the audience’s mind of these men who have been scared and traumatized through this war. Imagery has a powerful and convicting use in

One of the very first times they were at the Front line, Behm, a solider was the first to be injured, “He got hit in the eye during an attack, and we left him dying for dead… and was mad with pain, he failed to keep under cover, and was so shot down before anyone could go and fetch him in”( Remarque 12) . No one risked their own life to go back and help out the injured soldier. The way Behm died was harsh and painful as the author described him being shot. The violence being depicted will sink into the soldier’s

he, in a subtle sarcasm, mocks society 's idealization of the harsh reality of war and its dismissal of the pain and torture experienced by the soldiers till their inevitable demise when he mentions that the wretched soldiers are thought to be "hankering for wreaths and tombs and hearses. " By virtue of a combination of the DEATH IS DEPARTURE and DEATH IS NIGHT conceptual metaphors, we read the linguistic expression "go west" as denoting the soldiers ' death. And via the DEATH IS GOING TO A FINAL DESTINATION metaphor, we visualize the "tombs" as the final destination to which their bodies are sent with "wreaths" in "hearses."

The soldier himself is frightened on why he could not save him which haunts him in his dreams as he says “In all my dreams/ before my helpless sight” is how every time he dreams he sees the soldier and he cannot control it causing him to think of it every night frightening him everyday. Soon he will feel that the dead person wants revenge for his death as the soldier states “he plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning”, The dead soldier always comes into the narrator's dream wanting revenge as he chokes him as how he was being choked by the gas clouds and then drowning as how the dead soldier drowned in the green sea of chlorine gas. The horrors of war is what scares the soldier even after the war. At first soldiers imagine themselves as heroes creating them eager and excited they are until they finally get to the front and see no man's land. No man's land is usually bumpy with shell holes and dead trees that are either broken or burnt.

The pain that the soldier could get from guns could only last for a moment, but it also could be a pain that comes slowly, gradually and kills you with tough and suffer, which is an agony for mentally and physically, connecting to theme. “The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells” is from seventh line in first stanza. Owen also uses symbol to describe the scene of soldiers dying in the battle field by comparing with actual funeral in church with friends and families grieving his death. However, there are no beautiful calming voice choirs from the church in the battlefield to make the dead person rest in peace; no people to grieve, no funerals there. Instead, they here the sound of dull and big sound of shells attacking them.

This very short poem describes a man that is in one moment asleep in his mother’s womb (“from my mother’s sleep I fell into the state”) and the next moment is fighting for his life in the belly of a B-17 or B-24 aircraft only to die suddenly (“Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life”). The fear that is expressed in this poem is the fear of unjust acts becoming justified in war. One should not wash another man’s blood from an aircraft and not feel remorse of pity, but these are the harsh realities of war. The dehumanizing actions of the soldier’s are justified in the case of

This use of imagery, in this case, is used to make the audience sympathetic towards young Stephen, but at the same time it is used to put the reader in his place. This imagery is meant to bring the reader into the worst and most painful situation in King’s life and with phrases describing the needles length, and the smell that he has come to associate with the pain he went through. The imagery is also effective in transferring the feelings to the reader, just the

In “The Death Of A Toad” by Richard Wilbur, Richard Wilbur uses various poetic devices in order to bring across the idea of death and its different features. Some of the poetic devices used by Richard Wilbur are rhyme scheme, symbolism, and simile. Wilbur uses these specific devices in order to make his point that there are two ways people see death which is that “they are no longer suffering and are at peace” and the “hard times and tribulation” during the grieving stage.

It introduces the usage of geometrical diction, which continues throughout the poem. The speaker uses words such as “geometries”, “angularity”, and later on “edge”, “sharp”, and “axis” in the poem to show the definiteness and preciseness of death. It shows that death is not something that might happen, but will. The diction is also very sharp, which conveys

The details of the battle are still precise in the veteran’s mind. The artilleryman is very descriptive in what he saw and heard, and he also made comparisons for the reader to have a better understanding. In “Glory,” the most graphic scene was at the battle of Antietam. When Shaw was in the hospital after the battle, he witnessed an injured soldier screaming horrendously as he suffered through pain. Although these scenes were vivid, the poem was

The poem 's diction keeps emphasizing on death and the horrors of it which is intense. The era that this poem was written in influenced the tone because at that time no matter if the battle is won or lost the soldiers who sacrificed themselves should be honored no matter what, and should be acknowledged. In Mary Borden’s The Song of The Mud, the tone is sarcastic and ironic but still gruesome about war and going into the wars, the title of this poem is a great example of how ironic Mary is about war; in this title the reader would infer “song” is joyful and positive but then “mud” is negative and unpleasant.

This is different to the other poems already mentioned in this essay as it refers to the innocent citizens killed as opposed to the soldiers or upper class ranking officials at the time. A theme throughout the poem is that the first line of each verse contains the person who survives and the second line contains the person of is dead or about to die. “One man shall wake from terror to his bed. Five men shall be dead”

The soldier hates the war, he says “I died in hell”, this implies that the honorable death that the young men believed in, was actually an inglorious death for an empty cause. All the soldiers received in return for their lives was a gilded name on a memorial tablet, where people probably wont even see it. He felt that the squire didn 't appreciate how much he risked for his country, for the people he loved, for the squire himself, "Two bleeding years I fought in France, for Squire: I suffered anguish that he 's never guessed". The words ‘suffered’ and ‘anguish ' shows the soldiers’ emotional feeling towards the war, it shows how angry and sad he feels about what is happening and that he has been through a lot.

The poem, “The Death of a Toad” by Richard Wilbur, ponders the appearance and reverie that a toad may have towards the end of its life. Wilbur uses careful structure, imagery and diction to gradually show that to the speaker, the death of the toad starts as just a simple cease of breathing; but it transforms into a mystical journey. Wilbur arranges events to follow the thoughts, and adjustments, that the speaker's attitude goes through. The poem bluntly starts with the rather insensitive perception “A toad the power mower caught.” The basic absence of sympathy is obvious in the description that follows in the next few lines about the toads wounds, and actions.