Compare Owen’s use of language in “Dulce et Decorum est” and “Futility”.

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Compare Owen's use of language in "Dulce et Decorum est" and "Futility".

Both poems are different approaches of war describing the horrors of it in different ways. One is dealing with the moment of death while the other one is about the philosophical ideas after a death opposed to showing the death.

The sun is the central issue in the first line of Futility. It says, "Move him into the sun," which is not said as a shouted command but said very gently. Owen is clinging onto the hope of waking the man up but knows in his mind that the man is dead. He does this because he has just been shocked by the death and can't accept the death and is willing to try any thing to wake the dead man.

In the whole of the first verse, Owen hints to us that the dead man used to be a farmer. He talks of how the sun woke him every morning and as if it whispered tasks to be done. Owen shows this by saying, "Whispering of fields half-sown."

Owen compares death with sleep and thinks that if the sun can wake sleeping people then it can wake dead too. In the second verse he goes on to talk about what the sun has done in the past. He mentions how the earth was made and woken by the sun, by saying,
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"Woke once the clays of a cold star."

In this poem Owen sees the sun as an omniscient power and a life giver. Owen mentions,

"Are limbs, so dear achieved, are sides full nerved, still warm, to hard to stir?"

I think that this is one of the reasons why he clings on to the hope. This hints that the person has just died and so is still warm and it is as though he is sleeping instead of dead. The man although dead seems close to life, yet cannot be brought back.
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This essay is a little superficial and repetitive at times. It is important to make very precise links when comparing two poems either by looking at very specific similarities or differences. The explanations in this essay are not in depth enough and as a result a full knowledge and understanding of the poetry fails to be demonstrated. 3 Stars