examine how Wilfred Owen responded to the jingoistic poetry of Jessie Pope.

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“ Who’s for the game? The biggest that’s played”

The above quotation is from Jessie Pope’s “who’s for the game.”

With  reference to

“Dulce et Decorum Est”

and

“Anthem for Doomed Youth” by Wilfred Owen,

examine how Wilfred Owen responded to the jingoistic poetry

of Jessie Pope.

Wilfred Owen was born in Shropshire on the 18th of March 1893.  Owen volunteered for the army in 1914 when the First World War broke out.  After training he became an officer and was sent to France at the end of 1916.  The following year, Owen took part in the attacks on the German Hindenburg line, where he was suffering from shell shock after a shell burst near him.  The horrors of battle quickly transformed Owen and the way he thought about life. The reasons behind Wilfred Owen’s poems were to indoctrinate the people of those times.  “Dulce et Decorum Est” was to enable Owen to show the true meanings of war and to over right the untruthful poem of Jessie Pope and her propaganda technics.

Jessie Pope’s poem “ Who’s For The Game?”

 

There are sporting references such as “Who’ll toe the line,” “Who’ll grip and tackle the job unafraid.”  Also there are parts of the poem that incur guilt upon the men who hadn’t enlisted.  “Who wants a turn to himself in the show,”  “And who wants a seat in the stand?” and “Who thinks he’d rather sit tight?” this technique makes the reader feel responsible and pushes them to join up and be a part of ‘the game’.  The rhythm of the poem gives an impression of a rhyme, like something you could sing to, this is a strange way to write about the solemn subject of war.  When reading the poem Pope often added question marks at the end of her sentences, perhaps to encourage her audience to answer.  The language used was aimed at the uneducated, working class, a very easy to read script of misleading quotes.  The ideas that Jessie Pope embedded within the text were to persuade young men to join the forces to fight.  Jessie Pope’s views on the war were very straightforward and simple; Join the fight, win, then go home.

Join now!

 There are some authentic points in the text even though they are understated, such as; “It won’t be a picnic, not much,” and “Come back with a crutch,” this is very much true. Going to war would not be a picnic; the word picnic trivialises the whole aspect of how bad things really were.  The tone and atmosphere Jessie Pope created, was a tone of joy and happiness. Personification is used to encourage responsibility among the readers, “Your country is up to her neck in a fight,” a deceitful way to make the readers feel responsible to take part, after ...

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