Consider the very different approaches to war presented in Wilfred Owen's poem

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English Coursework.

Consider the very different approaches to war presented in Wilfred Owen’s poem “Mental Cases” and Henry V’s speech before the battle of Agincourt from Shakespeare’s play “Henry V”.

        

Both these poems take their theme about war, but treat it in different ways:

        The poem “Mental Cases” was written by Wilfred Owen during the First World War and talks about the consequence and effects war has had on the minds of the soldiers. The poem is also very graphic in its descriptions and has an archaic feel. It shows the psychological and physical damage that occurs to the “survivors” of the war. Wilfred Owen talks as though he’s observing them in a mental hospital, compared to the home he is actually viewing them in, again stressing the point that they are looked at as mental.

        The title “Mental Cases” is very brutal, it shows the consequences of war and that war is not a great thing to participate in unlike what the propaganda surrounding the war said at the time. It also shows that war does not just leave physical scars but also psychological scars. The poet appears as though he wants to lock them away and call them mental, it is as if he is trying to shift responsibility and not accept it. Also, the way the poet uses the title makes him seem patronising and insulting towards the men, as though he does not respect what they have done. I think he feels this way as he disagrees with war plus he can see the consequences of the war, feels that they have brought this upon themselves and cannot sympathise with the men.

        The first sentence has a cesaura, which slows down the poem dramatically. The first line also contains two rhetorical questions, which the reader cannot answer to due insufficient information that has been given. The poet is proclaiming it to an audience, trying to get them thinking about the poem rather than him just telling them the information and not letting them get involved. Also, the questions,

“Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?” makes you think that the poet does not recognise them. I think this is because the men have aged so much due to premature ageing that the poet does not in fact actually recognise them. These questions are also written with an inversion of word order; this provides emphasis but also gives the question an archaic feel as though it was written during the Shakespearean period.  The word “twilight” means that they are in slight darkness but not totally visible, it also suggests that they are in their own world and between life and death. Could it also be suggesting that their minds are in the dark?

In the second line, the poet calls the men,

“purgatorial shadows”, the shadow is basically a metaphor saying that they are between life and death; they are on their way to death, but not quite there as they are still paying for the sins that they have committed. This makes the reader want to know why they are in between life and death and what has made them so lifeless.  The poem previously makes them seem subhuman and abnormal.

The poet uses repetition to bring home a point,

“Stroke on stroke of pain”, this shows that the men’s pain never ends, and is always there. It makes you wonder yet again why they are in that state and what could be done to prevent it. Each rock they take is a stroke of pain, reminding them of the pain that they have caused on the dead soldiers.

In line eight, the sweat on the men’s faces is personified,

“Misery swelters.” The sweat here is described as misery, misery that runs down the men’s faces and they know it is there, the misery will never leave them. The sweat also shows their fear.

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The poet also writes in the first verse,

“but who these hellish?” the poet is saying that he must have died in his sleep and woken up in hell, as he cannot understand how people on earth can suffer this much pain unless they are in hell and being tortured. Basically, he is saying that the men might not have gone hell, but they are living in their own hell.

In the second verse, the poet answers his own questions,

“These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished.” The way the poet has used a capital letter to describe ...

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