A Comparison of how the poets in 'Joining the Colours' and 'the Send Off' present the soldiers going into war

        When Owen says “so secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went,’ it presents the fact that the soldiers are doing something wrong and the irony from the description of “wrongs” when there is nothing the soldiers can do. ‘Joining the Colours’ almost seems like a “wedding day” where “tin whistles and mouth organs” were blown, out of joy and optimism. Wilfred Owen, in line 13, almost refers to the men as being quite ‘generalistic’ and almost unimportant, “we never heard to which front these were sent.” The sentence also seems quite uncaring, as if it doesn’t matter that they do not know where the soldiers came from as they will die anyway. “Joining the Colours” refers to the soldiers in a more specific way, using many adjectives to represent the joy, “smooth-cheeked and golden” however later in the sentence it says, “food for shells and guns,” possibly referring to the war, ‘eating the soldiers up.’

        In line 13, Hinkson uses alliteration with “high” to sound like the propaganda which was very commonly used to encourage men to join the war. In ‘The Send Off,’ in line 18, it says, “a few, a few, too few for drums and yells,” there is repetition used to emphasize the decreasing number of soldiers, and there being no point for “drums and yells” as there will not be many soldiers left. This line is very pessimistic and compared to “Joining the Colours,” which is very optimistic, it presents the truth and not the false imagery.

        Although both poems are different, they still have the message that the soldiers are going to their deaths. In ‘Joining the Colours,’ the message is subtle, “into the dark” and “into the mist.” Hinkson illustrates the “mist” and “dark” being the ‘unknown,’ whereas in ‘The Send-Off’ the death was known and obvious, with the pessimism and the rhetorical question.