William Blake’s “London” and Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” appear to have little in common. Although at first they may seem different, they have many hidden similarities. Blake and Owen both uniquely deliver the message being told in their pieces to the readers. Ultimately, both deliver their message by allowing one to expect the unexpected, appeal to their senses, and the way the poet wants one to feel while reading.
Going to war is one of those decisions that can change one’s life forever. It is a dreadful decision and has some long-lasting negative effects on a soldier’s life. The soldiers in the novel are only nineteen-to-twenty years young, and they leave everything behind to fight for their country, not knowing that they will never be able to live a normal life again. They are broken and can never relate to anyone their age, except for soldiers like them who go through the same hardship as them. Just as stated in a critical overview of All Quiet on the Western Front, the soldiers “have been cut off from their roots by the traumatic experiences of war, and have been stripped of their youth… the war has cut them off from the values of a cultured civilization, reducing them to animals with nothing to exist for but the present moment, and no philosophy save that of pure chance, which determines from one moment to the next whether or not they survive” (Last, para.
In the Poem Dulce Et Decorum Est It is about the horrors of war and how no one ever realises it if they war not in the army. As Wilfred Owen Said “Dim, Through the misty panes and thick green light/ As under a green sea, I saw him drowning/ In all my dreams, Before my helpless sight,/ He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning”(Document C). The soldier that tells the story states of his horrors of war and how a man died in a gas attack and he was not able to save him, “under the green sea, I saw him drowning” the green sea was the chlorine gas that was dropped.
Slaughtered like worthless cattle, these soldiers are dying one after another without dignity and no remorse; they are fighting for a hopeless cause because war is anything but heroic. It is just a place where soldiers go to die. The title of the poem, “Dulce et Decorum Est” derives from the Latin saying “It is sweet and proper”, which ironically is anything but sweet and proper. While a majority of the public would believe that it is honorable to fight for a so-called “justified” war or to die for one’s country in battle, war is not honorable; it
War is a transformative event because it alters people's perspectives of war, and leaves them suffering, mentally and physically. When the soldiers experienced the true realities of the war, they were left haunted, as depicted in the poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen. This poem explains the true realities of the war and how he was left with a damaged mental state. Owen says:
"We want to live at any price; so we cannot burden ourselves with feelings which, though they might be ornamented enough in peacetime, would be out of place here" (Remarque, Erich. All Quiet on the Western Front). This quote symbolizes how much war changes your humane mentality. The soldiers that died were thrown in shell holes. Close friends became victims in war, and that no longer bothered the
Based on Tim O’Brien, many argue that war is grotesque, but war could also be beauty. Although war is not lovely because of all the killings and awful moments, it could also be beautiful. As O’Brien mentions, war is like a cancer under a microscope. The soldiers can see horrifying moments in the battle, but the battle scene is glorious. The soldiers admire on the harmony of nature and the troops.
Throughout the ages, wars have wreaked havoc and caused great destruction that lead to the loss of millions of lives. However, wars also have an immensely destructive effect on the individual soldier. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque, one is able to see exactly to what extent soldiers suffered during World War 1 as well as the effect that war had on them. In this essay I will explain the effect that war has on young soldiers by referring to the loss of innocence of young soldiers, the disillusionment of the soldiers and the debasement of soldiers to animalistic men. Many soldiers entered World War 1 as innocent young boys, but as they experienced the full effect of the war they consequently lost their innocence.
The idea of war was only ideal to the young boys, and that changed throughout the course of the book. The war is frowned upon by some people, Irene Hunt, as an example. First, the letters that the boys in the war wrote were never positive. They always mentioned the awful things about the war, “Things was awful bad with so many kilt and others froze.”
It can easily be expected that people affected by suffering caused by war would not want any more of it. In the book, it is stated in the book: “How senseless is everything that can ever be written, done, or thought, when such things are possible. It must be all lies and of no account when the culture of a thousand years could not prevent this stream of blood being poured out, these torture-chambers in their hundreds of thousands. A hospital alone shows what war is.” War is not always portrayed the way it should be.
This is showing how the war affects soldiers and how they is these circumstances are put into deadly positions that often lead to them having to experience such devastating occurrences. People lose their innocence in war and they lose their
Wilfred Owen’s poem ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ structure hints to the uncertainty of war. In the first eight lined stanza, Owen describes the soldiers from a third person point of view. The second stanza is shorter and consists of six lines. This stanza is more personal and is written from a first person 's point of view. This stanza reflects the pace of the soldiers as everything is fast and uncoordinated because of the gas, anxiety and the clumsiness of the soldiers.
Both Dulce et Decorum Est and Mametz Wood present the incompetent results of war. Dulce et Decorum Est indicates the horrible facts and deaths in war. Moreover, Mametz Wood highlights how precious life is and how easily it can be lost as a result of battle. In this poem “Dulce et decorum Est”, Owen portrays the deadly effects of conflict through the use of metaphor: “as under a green sea, I saw him drowning”. Here, he describes the pain of the gas attack.
A heroic couplet structure within the poem provides a degree of clarity while still asserting the chaos and cruelness of war. Once again, it can be inferred that Owen himself serves as the speaker. However, this time his audience is more focused on young soldiers and families rather than plainly the public in general. In contrast to the previous work, this poem is set primarily in a World War I training camp, signifying the process young soldiers go through prior to deployment to the front line. The tone of this poem is more foreboding and condemnatory, not only describing the training soldiers but outright degrading their forced involvement as morally wrong.
Through both of his poems, Dulce Et Decorum Est and Disabled, Owen clearly illustrates his feeling about war. Both of them convey the same meaning that war destroyed people’s lives. For Dulce Et, Decorum Est, it mainly illustrates soldier’s life during war, the dreadfulness of war, whereas, Disabled illustrates how war have damaged soldier’s life. Also, the saying that said that war it is lovely and honorable to die for your country is completely against his point of view. Owen conveys his idea through graphically describing his horrible experiences in war.