Refugee Blues

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Compare and Contrast the Poems: Dulce et Decorum Est and Refugee Blues

Both poems, 'Dulce et Decorum Est' and 'Refugee Blues;' are about related subjects. 'Dulce et Decorum Est' is a soldier's account of an attack of gas shells and 'Refugee Blues' is about the feelings of a Jewish man in Germany during the Second World Was. Both these poems are linked to war.

The main view in 'Dulce et Decorum Est' is that war is neither glorius nor glorifying. Wilfred Owen writes, 'Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through the sludge.' This proves that was not 'one patriotic march'. The choice of portraying the marching soldiers coughing hags does not make soldiers seem strong and brave. It makes them seem sickly, feeble and old. Soldiers are looked upon as the fittest and healthiest of people, Wilfred Owen is showing that war can ruin even the strongest of people. Another quote which similarly shows Wilfred Owen's view about warfare and the suffering that involves, is: 'Drunk with fatigue,' this quote can be linked to the previous one about hags. Both drunk and hags and considered as the lowest of people and are a huge contrast between soldiers of the time, who were highly respected.
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In the poem 'Refugee Blues', a Jewish man is talking to his wife about the injustices and they are experiencing. This is the view that the poet is trying to impose on the reader. The people are being excluded in a country where they are unwanted. The man says to his wife:

Say this city has ten million souls

Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes

Yet there is no place for us, my dear, there is no place for us

The man is telling his feelings on injustice, by explaining ...

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