“A War Film” by Teresa Hooley uses alliteration and assonance in the second stanza where “shells scream” within her mind. This stanza is also unusual in the sense that Hooley writes about “machine-guns” and that is what the stanza looks like – an abstract machine-gun. Different themes or ideas run through the different stanzas. As her thoughts and feelings change over a period of time. The fourth stanza makes the subject of war more personal to the narrator as she is imaging her son “rotting in No Man’s Land, out in the rain” - rain being the metaphor for crying in poetry. Ellipses in lines 16, 19 and 25 are used to emphasise the trail of thought and the point the narrator wants to get across to us. The last two lines of the poem seem to reflect what soldiers may have thought about the war as they enlisted – “He thought it was a game, and laughed, and laughed.” It could show the innocence of the soldiers and how they did not realise what they had got themselves into.
Owen’s poem has a message to convey; that war is an ugly, brutal and nightmarish affair. If you consider the poem without the final stanza, it changes the direction and context certainly, but we are still left with an honest and disturbing image of the war. Owen seems to be mocking the established belief in “that old Lie” and argues subtly about the futility of war through the powerful strength of his feelings. His tone - depression, anger, lack of hope, and of course, sadness, reveals his message without him having to write pages of verse; he accomplishes his message very quickly in the poem, and makes us, the audience feel like we are actually experiencing what the narrator is going through.
In the final stanza, Owen personalises the poem to the readers at that time as he repeatedly emphasises that “you” to would not be in high spirits if they had experienced the truth of what those soldiers went through. He seems to want to end the glorification of the war through the endless propaganda that was going on at that particular point in time. Indeed the very first stanza takes away the glory of the war as the once proud and dignified soldiers are now merely “bent double, like old beggars under sacks”. This is a very powerful image as it is wholly unexpected because the title of the poem indicates that it may be a patriotic poem but instead it is the total opposite.
Brookes’ poem has a contrasting message to Owen’s poem. “Peace” is more of a patriotic poem and can be said to have reflected the atmosphere of Britain at the beginning of the war when morale was high. He writes about the glory of war and how they, the soldiers, have “found release there” fighting for their country’s “honour”. The push in Nationalism at that time made him believe that “the sick hearts that honour could not move” would resent not enlisting as they would not have the honour of fighting for their country and would be branded cowards as it may be also seen that they had no love for their country.
Hooley’s poem is written in the first person, which makes it a more personalised view of her feelings about the war. At the time, she had just seen the film “The Mons Retreat” and this was a way for people to hear about news from the Front. The conflicting emotions of “sorrow and pride” captured the feelings of the nation as a whole about the war. The feelings of “the horror and the anguish and the glory” are evident in this poem. The narrator did not notice the impact and comprehension of the film’s content until she “came out into the street” and it was only then that she realised that her son could be enlisted one day to fight in the war. It is this realisation that sets the tone for the rest of this poem.
Wilfred Owen’s thoughts and feelings influenced his poetry to a large degree as he drew on his experiences of the war that he was fighting in. His personal experience dominates his poetry and the horrific things that he had experienced were put into poetry form to dramatically encapture his thoughts and feelings at that particular point in time.
Rupert Brookes’ was also writing at the time of the First World War, but his experiences were more towards the beginning of the war instead of during the middle like Owen’s was. His poetry seems to be very patriotic and it can be said that his poems reflected the mood of Britain at the time. During this time, there was an emphasis in Nationalism in Britain as War Propaganda was being promoted throughout the country.
Teresa Hooley’s poem may have been written after she saw the film “The Mons Retreat” and the images portrayed in that film could have influenced her poem to a certain extent. This may have created a startling realisation amongst the British public that the war may last a lot longer then just until Christmas.
Owen and Brookes were male and so, their perceptions on the war could be seen in a different light to Hooley’s. Owen and Brookes, although their opinions on the war differed, were writing as soldiers whereas Hooley was writing from a mother’s perspective. The fear and anguish of the possibility of losing her son is apparent in “A War Film”. Brookes writes in a more patriotic way whereas Owen’s poem is more hard-hitting and evocative; his poem becomes more emotive as it carries on.
The three poems are from different time periods of the war. “Peace” was written towards the beginning of the war, “A War Film” was written somewhere in the middle of the war and “Dulce Et Decorum Est” was written during the war from a soldier’s long-term experience of it. This could help us show the changing attitudes to the war and it is true that after the First World War, there was a flood of literature depicting the sheer horror of the war – H.G Wells described it as “the war to end all wars”. Brooks’ poem was typical of those at the beginning of the war: patriotic and full of encouragement to enlist to fight in the war. Hooley’s poem reflects the changing attitudes to war whereas Owen’s poem can be seen to have been influenced by Siegfried Sassoon (who he had met at Craiglockhart War Hospital). Owen’s poem is a subtle protest poem and seems to reflect the true nature of what it was like to fight in the war and watch your fellow soldiers get killed. The personal reaction of each poet is shown in these poems and seems to indicate the different attitudes to the war.
