It is clear when a country goes to war, patriotism and support for ones’ country is obvious. After events of nine eleven, there were large amount of support given to soldiers fighting in Iraq. Banners, stickers, rallies were some ways people showed their gratitude. Little do they know, many of the strong men, who are in battle, goes through an episode where they fear death more than anything else. In the writings of William B. Yeats and Wilfred Owens, their war poems depicts an emotional load that they have encountered, to a point where death was no longer a fear but a desire. War is not a pretty sight. On the battle field, what is seen, felt and heard isn’t fully comprehensible unless one experienced it first hand. Owen’s …show more content…
Yeats’s was an airmen of his home village, the Kiltartan Cross. The first four verse put the reader in a nonchalant mood because the verses tells the reader how he felt. Yeats was more neutral when it came to the war. His enemies he fights against he doesn’t hate and the people who he fights for, he doesn’t love. Most soldiers would feel differently. Fighting for your country brings honor and dignity among yourself. Yeats did not feel that way at all. All he knew was somewhere among the clouds, death was lingering. In the midst of the haunting darkness, treacherous sounds and dying soldiers, the fear of death was no longer the issue for Owen and Yeats. The war has taken such an emotional toll, to where death was a motivation to get out. War is painful. Soldiers are put in a lot physical and mental extremities. Owen and Yeats were mentally suffering from all the commotion. In verse 15-17, Owen describes his feelings as if it were a painful dream. The use of diction helps to more clearly define what the he is saying. Words like "guttering", "choking", and "drowning" not only show how he is suffering, but a terrible pain that no human being should bear. Yeats felt the same as Owen. Though they were fighting in two different scenarios, they shared a common outlook. In verse 9-12, the law, his civil duty, nor cheering crowds of supporters was no motive for Yeats to be in war. All Yeats felt was “a lonely impulse of delight.” Yeats uses the only
On “An Irish Airman foresees his death” by W.B Yeats the themes of the poem is the balancing of life and death with a hopeless feeling about life or in this case his destiny after the result of war. On the first two lines, Yeats prepares us for his journey. We can see how his negation of any natural feeling on line three and four. “Those that I fight I do not hate, those that I guard I do not love”. One can understand the situation in which the pilot does not care of the whole situation; he just wants this war to be over. As one goes over line five and six we can relate that the Irish is fighting for another country which in this case: the Germans. Even though he does not really care what the result of the
The use of the word ravished implies a violent and bloody rend, similar to a beast, of the soldier’s minds, which portrays them as a weak pray. This image is emphasized with the use of the phrase ‘helpless wander’ to refer to the soldiers, as they are dehumanized from people to just stranded figures wandering around. The action of walking without a clear path is associated with the disoriented minds of the soldiers and might lead the reader to view them as lost and vulnerable animals. In spite of this, the mentioning of body parts in the second stanza, used as metonymies for the soldiers, continues the omission of the word people and intensifies the idea that these men are just a piece of meat, as their minds do not work efficiently. Words such as sloughs of flesh, human squander, flying muscles and lungs gives the sense that humanity has been stripped from them, transforming them into violent beasts through the use of an unpleasing visual imagery of bloody body parts. On the 15th verse, the things they see and hear refer to the memories of a war that continuously come back and torment them. The idea of the never-ending cycle is implied by the word always. This verse shows the damaged minds of the soldiers and accomplishes Owen’s main purpose of highlighting the terror of war. More importantly, it characterizes soldiers as insane and unstable, as they see these
Wilfred Owen can be considered as one of the finest war poets of all times. His war poems, a collection of works composed between January 1917, when he was first sent to the Western Front, and November 1918, when he was killed in action, use a variety of poetic techniques to allow the reader to empathise with his world, situation, emotions and thoughts. The sonnet form, para-rhymes, ironic titles, voice, and various imagery used by Owen grasp the prominent central idea of the complete futility of war as well as explore underlying themes such as the massive waste of young lives, the horrors of war, the hopelessness of war and the loss of religion. These can be seen in the three poems, ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ and
Yeats is about a man who is contemplating on joining the air force in spite of living a normal boring life. This poem shows how a soldier weighed his pros and cons in joining the military and made the decision to participate in what he thought of as a meaningless conflict where he stated that "those that I fight I do not hate, those that I guard I do not love"(Yeats 3-4). The man in this poem knew that he was bound to die in the air force but stated that he would rather die a hero than to live his normal life and be a "waste of breath". Yeats wrote this poem foreshadowing Major Robert Gregory's life as he went through the decision to become a member of the air force and later died at war. Given these points, one can see how W.B. Yeats wrote his poem to show that not all soldiers have the same psychology view that some fight in the war for their country and others risk their lives to become something
The poem doesn’t really tell a story, but walks through all the dreadful situations through the eyes of an innocent and shell-shocked soldier. It is told through a WWI veteran’s point of view in second person. By examining this “war” poem and Wilfred Owen’s background, it is reasonable to believe that Own is talking about his experience during war. Therefore making the speaker, he himself. Owen is talking to everyone that does not know the realistic feeling of war up in the frontlines. He painfully expresses all the horrific scenes he had to go through. Through remembering it, his description of the mood is very dreary and cold. It kills all sense of joy and secures one in pity and sorrow.
of his poems he tries to show the reader that if they had seen what he
When analyzing Owen’s personal views of the war, its clear to see Owen wishes to gain the attention of those at home in England who urge their youth to fight for glory and honor. After experiencing significant trauma during the war, Owen wonders how a society
One of these is the historical importance of the poem itself. Owen fought in the first world war and was killed in action unfortunately, but he was able to write poems and this particular one serves as a piece of Owen that can speak to the world since Owen phically could not after he was killed. One of the main themes was that we need to people cautious so that history does not repeat itself, and after WW1, WW2, and other devastating wars, it is vital to learn from previous historical mistakes and events to prevent this from happening. Having some military veterans, and some family members killed in action, I takes topics such as this one seriously has I can understand the immense toll war can take one someone as well as the meaning for their sacrifices. Also, the way in that Owens wrote this poem was important to me since he was able to exemplify some truth of war, although many who read have never experienced war including myself, and we will never truly understand unless we actually experience it, Owen wrote this poem as more of a conversation to readers which immediately sets his tone. And this takes me to the thought process of how he was feeling during the time he wrote this. I can't image what is was like to live in the trenches on top of being hunted down to be killed, but Owen offered some consensus for
When Owen displays the horrific scenes of war it shows how cruel war actually is. Owen used very good imagery to depict the death of soldiers, this is giving readers a feel of what soldiers endure on a day to day basis. A clear picture that is depicted in a horrible scene that is in the reader's’ mind, as seen in “watch the white eyes writhing” (19). The tragedies of war are also described as, “guttering, choking, drowning” (16). The repetition emphasizes the pain that the man is enduring. The presence of onomatopoeia illustrates the circumstances the soldier has when used in “gargling” (22). In this poem, war is shown to put people in an intense pain, a suffering that no one should have to endure.
The soldier even reflects on why he joined the army in the first place. “It was after football, when he 'd drunk a peg / He thought he 'd better join. He wonders why... / Someone had said he 'd look a god in kilts” (Owen, 23-25). The importance surrounding the life of a soldier and the glamorous uniform enticed him to join the army, but in reality, being a soldier was nothing like he had expected. Instead of people honoring him, which was the reason he joined the war, people only pitied him. Essentially, this poem is comparing the soldier to an old person who spends his last days in sickness, recalling the good days when he was young and healthy. He cannot even put himself to bed, and like an old person needs assistance for such a task. The soldier is an empty soul, every word he utters is dreary and void of any feeling. The future seems
During his time serving in the war, Wilfred Owen was able to capture many ideas, concepts, and perceptions that cleverly portrayed into his poems. Even the Sassoon had an impression that Owen, no matter what, had complete dedication and “he passionately wanted to survive the war, so that he might continue to write poetry.. he showed himself as …an increasingly self-critical one.” Owen was quite dedicated to his work and he let nothing go past him. His sentiment to the war was a recurring speech that echoed his very thoughts. In one of his poems, the Sentry, Owens uses the words “Hammered”, “choked”, “murk..”, and “whizz-bangs” to establish the reality of war and what those soldiers are put through. This is in contrast with the word “coaxing”, which shifts the attention away from reality to more of Owen’s altruism and ‘appearance’ that the man is able to survive. The onomatopoeia used in the second stanza present a sudden push into reality, such as “thud! Flump! Thud!”. This sudden jump also supplies information on how difficult it was to navigate through the war zone. In the third stanza, Owen switches to a form of fate, in which he relates how this may have been the fate of the man. He forms these thoughts with words phrases such as “wild chattering”, “crumps”, “Pummelled”, or “slogged the air”, that imply how the feeling of dread metaphorically listens for these words before “striking”. The Sentry is quite different from any of the other poems that Wilfred Owen has written in that it seems to be centered around internal dialogue rather than just him laying out details and interpretations of events. The specific dialogue he
The poet highlight how a friend soldier of his was killed because he couldn’t find a mask in time. The poem is an anti-war poem set against the romantic illusion of the glory of war. It projects unnumbered kinds of death that war brings upon the youth. Owen suggests that if people could see what he had seen they would never be able to tell any enthusiastic thing about war to their children. The poem is mockery of the meaning of the title that it is sweet and right to die for your country. Owen’s distain for the war and the horrors that the soldiers experienced becomes evident throughout his poetry. No matter how noble the cause is the individual soldier can expect nothing but misery in combat an ignominious death and should be unfortunate enough to become a casualty.
Owen's war poetry is a passionate expression of outrage at the horrors of war and of pity for the young soldiers sacrificed in it. It is dramatic and memorable, whether describing physical horror, such as in‘ Dulce et Decorum Est’ or the unseen, mental torment such as in‘ Disabled’. His diverse use of instantly understandable imagery and technique is what makes him the most memorable of the war poets. His poetry evokes more from us than simple disgust and sympathy; issues previously unconsidered are brought to our attention. One of Owen’s talents is to convey his complex messages very proficiently. In‘ Dulce et Decorum Est’–‘ If in some smothering dreams you too could pace / Behind the wagon that we flung him in’ the horror of witnessing
Owen shows the representation of the horrors of the battlefield. The main themes of this poem is Death, suffuring, pain, sorrow, bitterness: so a pretty realistic poem. Through his writting, Owen share a hellish vision of
During the war over 59 million troops were mobilized, 8 million died and 29 million were injured. (wilde, 2014). Both the poems had exhibited the effects of the destructive war.” War broke: and now the Winter of the world With perishing great darkness closes in”(1914). Here Owen was trying to convince that the war was like a winter which was cold and harsh affecting the world by making it dark. Dark here means destructive and terrifying which will deprive the happiness and prosperity of the world. ”The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere. The ceremony of innocence is drowned;” (Yeats. 1919). This statement also has a similar point of view as the in Owen’s “1914” the consequences of war was likely to be devastating as it snatched the peace and happiness from the people. Yeats had associated the war with bloodshed and downfall of