"Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owens, is a poem that possesses a lot of irony and a lot of imagery when it comes to the outcome of war. Men (at first) were proud to be serving their country, but Owens shows us a side of war that none of us would ever come to know unless we actually are there. His use of imagery allows us to picture the thought of seeing pure goryness everywhere. "If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood/ Come gargling from the forth-corrupted lungs..." (ll. 21-22). And the irony that was present in this poem resembles his bitterness that he has towards the things that he has been through and that he has seen at war.
In the "Glory of Women" by Siegfried Sassoon, Sassoon talks about women with a somewhat angry/ sarcastic tone when it comes to their contributions in the war. "You can't believe that Britiah troops 'retire'/ When hell's last horror breaks them, and they run..." (ll. 9-10), there is a lot of sarcasm in the word retire, he may believe that women don't have so much respect as to what they go through. The presenters mentioned how Sassoon has a mocking tone towards the women sitting comfortably at home, and I definitely agree with that. He makes women seem as if they don't really care about anything besides the fact that they're fighting for their country. They are living there normal lives while the soldiers are going through traumatizing matters. "O, German mother dreaming by the fire,/ While you are knitting socks to send your son/ His face is trodden deeper in the mud" (ll. 12-14).
In "Break of Day by the Trenches" by Isaac Rosenburg, there is an emphasis on what the soldiers think of during war. In the poem, Rosenburg is addressing a rat, but the whole time he was thinking of whether or not he will be able to survive the horrid conditions that he was in. He looks at the rat and thinks " Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,/ Less chanced than you for life..."(ll.14-15), he believes that the rat has more of a chance of surviving than he does. As "The darkeness crumbles away..." (ll. 1) he mentions that the times are still harsh even with the sun starting to come up but there is still a sense of hope to get out of the place that he is in.
Madeline Ida Bedford describes the condition of a women during WWI. Her poem "Munition Wages" is a really interesting poem because of the dialect she uses. It isn't like the other poems that were presented, where you feel a sense of sadness, deppression, fear, or anger, but a sense of happiness in a way. Her dialect kind of helps with that, she says things in a way that doesn't bring sadness to our mind, she brings us (the reader) closer to her, personally. But in her poem, she kind of portrayed a sense of irony with the fact that the women are making money, from the jobs of men that used to work at that specific place, living their lives, doing things that they would've never been able to do, and soldiers are fighting in another country and are experiencing near-death situations.
"The Soldier" by Rupert Brooke, shows the patriotism a soldier has towards the country that he is fighting for. He uses imagery and personification to describe is homeland, England. "A body of England's, breathing English air..."(ll. 7). He loves everything about the country that he is fighting for. "Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;/ And laughter learn't of friends; and gentleness,/ In hearts at peace, under an English Heaven" (ll. 12-14) He would be proud to die fighting for his country.
"The Rear Guard" by Seigfried Sassoon, was what I thought one of the most powerful poems that were presented. The mention of the stairs was what really got me. In the beginning of the poem, he/the soldier is "Groping along the tunnel, step by step..." (ll. 1), trying to get out of the horrid conditions of the tunnel. The soldier is staggering to get through the tunnel to reach the stairs to get out of the hell that he was in when he was in the tunnel, but in class, it was mentioned that he's leaving a hell-like situation behind, but also going onto a hell-like situation ahead, which was kind of shocking but yet so true. And the fact that his poem structure resembled that of the stairs themselves was also very interesting.
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