Plato’s words, “only the dead have seen the end of war,” are echoed in the poem, “The End and the Beginning”. By employing techniques of repetition, diction, symbols, syntax, caesura, enjambment, visual imagery, metaphor, and personification, Wislawa Szymborska reminds us that the end of war does not signal the end of suffering. Instead, post war marks a new chapter narrating the arduous process of physical and emotional reconstruction. The voice that paints the grim portrait of war and its aftermath was born at the time of World War II. As the Poles, including Wislawa Szymborska, were under control of Nazi occupation, they lost their freedom and were imprisoned in their own country. Wislawa Szymborska’s direct encounter with war has made this poem more credible, as she speaks from truth and experience. She has taken the serious theme of war and expressed …show more content…
Throughout the poem, there is repetition of “someone”, stressing that “Someone has to clean up”, “Someone has to push the rubble”, and “Someone has to get mired”. “Someone” is utilised to enumerate the number of broken things that need to be mended, but to also urge that someone must take responsibility and pick up the broom. She does not specify this “someone” to emphasize that anybody can fill this position. However, Wislawa by applying specific detail such as “pushing the rubble to the side of the road”, “rehanging a door” or “glazing a window”, to being entangled in “sofa springs” , the poem offers the audience a magnifying glass zooming into the level of devastation. The destruction evokes an image similar to the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, while war has reduced homes and roads to “scum and ashes”, the setting of the poem provides an opportunity to press reset or offer space for a fresh
The poem “Hhomecoming” written by Bruce Dawe in 1968 is about the dead and their neglectful treatment by their living comrades. The poem effects its audience deeply by giving them a view into how the dead soldiers were treated like objects, which comes out through the poem in lines such as ‘...rolling them out of the deep freeze lockers…’ and ‘they’re tagging them…’. The poetic techniques used throughout the poem was repartition by using these poetic technique it gave the reader a deep understanding into how the poem portrays war as terrible, harsh and depressing and the mistreatment of the dead by repeating. By using the simple word ‘they’re’ it gives the audience the understanding that it wasn’t just one person it was many. ‘they’re zipping
Literature encapsulates the human experience, reflecting facets of our culture, traditions, and beliefs. Literature functions as a tool to develop and explore empathetic links with other individuals and can provide insight into experiences removed from our own reality. Peter Fischl’s poem ‘Little Polish Boy’ is one such text in which we can attain a unique understanding of the horrors catalysed by war. An expression of Fischl’s own Holocaust experience, this poem is set in WWII, and addressed as a letter to an innocent child of the war from a photograph Fischl found years after the war ended. We can also learn of the loss and grief children face in times of war through the picture book ‘a Soldier, a Dog and a Boy’ by Libby Hathorn. The story follows a young boy orphaned by the Battle of Somme and he’s only left to survive with his dog before an Australian soldier comes to his rescue. These texts allow us to reach a better understanding of the different effects conflict has on children.
Yusef Komunyakaa’s poem “Facing It” is an emotional journey to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. According to Poets.org, Komunyakaa earned a Bronze Star for his service in the United States Army during the Vietnam war (1969-70). The use of first-person point of view gives the reader insight to the pain felt by a veteran reliving the horrors of war. The writer shares an indelible bond with not only the narrator, but all survivors of military combat. This bond is something that cannot be fully understood by the average person visiting the memorial. The theme of the perpetual effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is conveyed through the use of imagery, diction, and mood.
The word “homecoming” is universally associated with a celebration of the returned and is linked to feelings of happiness and anticipation. Dawe however, employs this word ironically as the “homecoming” described in the poem correlates to the death and mourning of the soldiers who fought in the Vietnam War and depicts the arrival of their nameless bodies. Through establishing this irony Dawe is about to effectively capture the brutal reality of war and highlight the emotional trauma associated with its dehumanising
“Facing it” by Yusef Komunyakaa and “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen, are two powerful poems with the graphical life like images on the reality of war. It is apparent that the authors was a soldier who experienced some of the most gruesome images of World War I. In “Ducle et Decorum Est” Owen tells us about a personal experience in which he survived a chemical warfare attack. Although he survives, some of his fellow troops do not. As in “Facing It” Komunyakaa is also a soldier who has survived a war. Komunyakaa response to his war experience is deeply shaped by his visit to Lin’s memorial. Inspired by the monument, Komunyakaa confronts his conflicted feelings about Vietnam, its legacy, and even more broadly, the part race plays in
Both poems show the effects war has on witnesses even when their time in the conflict is deemed to be over. The extreme nature of war and the equally strong emotions and trauma that stick with survivors are conveyed in both of these
In the early 1940s, over six million Jews were slaughtered due to the irrational belief of their imperfection. Each day, people make decisions, and those decisions are guided by thoughts, and everyone has the right to those opinion; however, many people fail to believe that their thoughts and actions can affect the lives of others. There are people with a strong moral compass that carry around the weight of the horrific actions of others such as Peter L. Fischl, author of the poem, “To the Little Polish Boy Standing with His Arms Up.” Throughout the poem, the author expresses how some people are in denial but others are haunted by the horrific events of the past. The narrator speaks to this young Polish boy, standing with his arms above his head, waiting patiently for his demise. Life is full of difficulties; if there were no struggles in life then it would not be life at all. The author creates a lead into the poem with the title, using a symbol for vulnerability. If someone stands with their arms in the air it means they are surrendering, they are vulnerable and defenseless. As the little Polish boy walks past the guards, he has his arms raised, knowing he has no say in what is yet to come. In the poem “To the Little Polish Boy Standing With his Arms Up” Fischl uses repetition and symbolism to enhance, that one’s actions affect the lives of others, and at times those on the sidelines have a worsening effect after all.
The poem Sorrow by Martin Dejnicki shares many similar themes with The Things They Carried by Tim O'brien. Both works of writing display war as a painful and and traumatizing experience. However, this poem reflects the message in The Things They Carried chapter, “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” most accurately. Both the chapter and the poem share the theme that war can take away a person’s humanity. In the lines, “We've dug a hole, called a trench, Humanity is gone, replaced with stench” (Dejnicki) the author is trying to convey that a soldier in war can have their humanity striped away and uses the symbolism of “stench” to describe the foul persona that may replace it.
Whether it’s war or terrorism, children who want to grow securely is living amongst the affected nation. War is obliterating those talented individuals in their childhood who can radically transform the world itself. The two disputed countries may also have justifications to protect the welfares of their own people. There can be wealth and nuclear weapons to demolish this world as a whole. However, peacefully negotiated approach is coveted to compromise on each other. No country can rationalize weapons of mass obliteration and debacles. Often, it is a foolish decision of the pioneers of the country, making it a pretext for the combat. It’s the upright soldiers and their families who need to survive the demise and serious injuries from the weapons. For the last centuries, the spontaneous overflow of poetry has portrayed human emotions concerning wide range of universal issues. Both the poets Donald Bruce Dawe and Wilfred Owen exemplify this cataclysm of losing your families and the conditions the soldiers face, through their notable poems Homecoming and Dulce et Decorum Est.
“The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” by Randall Jarrell is able to accomplish so many thing with so little lines-mainly through the use of metaphor and diction. It explains the terrors of wars in gruesome detail and explains the ways in which wars, in a sense “breed” and “birth” death. To some, this poem is seen as the ultimate poem of war, and rightly
Little Polish Boy is a poem that highlights the impacts of war on children. It explores the war through the perspective of an unnamed child, symbolising the extent to which civilians were involved in the war, reiterating the helplessness of the Jewish prisoners. The poem uses hyperboles and personification such as “the world who said nothing” to convey Fischl’s frustration and sorrow over the atrocities and inhumanity of the enemy and the world who stood and watched. Fischl uses repetition such as “the little polish boy” to allow the audience to create an instilled idea of the
During times of war, it is inevitable for loss to be experienced by all. In the poems “The Black Rat” and “The Photograph” written by Iris Clayton and Peter Kocan respectively, the idea of loss is explored through an omniscient narrator recalling a soldier’s involvement in warfare. While Clayton writes of a soldier’s abrupt loss of hope and how this experience negatively affects his life, Kocan explores how the loss of a loved one affects a family sixty years later. While both poems incorporate similar techniques in imagery and narration, the time setting for each poem is different as “The Black Rat” is set in Tobruk, Libya during World War 2 and “The Photograph” is set during World War 1.
Literature and poetry are a reflection of society. The words are reflected in numerous feelings that we can almost touch and can be deeply felt in its reach. Most poets expressed their perception and emotion through their writings. Unfortunately the art and poetry describes one of the worst things that human can do to one another. The legalized murder called "war." Hence, this type of self-reflection called "poetry" has help create new fundamental ideas and values towards our society. In this essay, I will discuss the issue of the "War Poetry" during the "Great War" along with comparing and contrasting two talented renowned poets; Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) and Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967).
The collection of poems “Theater”, “Water”, and “Safe House” by Solmaz Sharif shows the varied viewpoints of how war affects the speakers and how death is all too common in the midst of warfare. The author uses a spectrum of literary techniques to enhance the experience of the reader, so we can fully grasp the severity of each speaker’s plight. All of Sharif’s poems differ in form with the use of white space and indentations in “Theater”, colons in “Water”, and a style of abecedarian using the letter S in “Safe House”. While her diverse use of forms generate different emotions from the reader, they share the same notion of how violence is problematic. Each poem has a unique outlook to the sight of war: “Theater” being in the position of a victim and an assailant of war, “Water” explaining a war mission and fatalities in terse terms, and “Safe House” as an observer of an activist against war. Sharif’s strategy to exemplify the effects of how war affects the victim and the civilian is particularly critical because mass media tends to hide the collateral damage of war and only illustrates why we should attack the “enemy”. Another approach the author uses to critique the speakers central conflicts is by arranging words from the US Department of Defense 's Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, to concur with the message of the several ways war influences the lives of those who are unwillingly encompassed by it. Sharif uses poetry as an outlet to show the underlying tone
Poets frequently utilize vivid images to further depict the overall meaning of their works. The imagery in “& the War Was in Its Infancy Then,” by Maurice Emerson Decaul, conveys mental images in the reader’s mind that shows the physical damage of war with the addition of the emotional effect it has on a person. The reader can conclude the speaker is a soldier because the poem is written from a soldier’s point of view, someone who had to have been a first hand witness. The poem is about a man who is emotionally damaged due to war and has had to learn to cope with his surroundings. By use of imagery the reader gets a deeper sense of how the man felt during the war. Through the use of imagery, tone, and deeper meaning, Decaul shows us the