“Dulce et Decorum est” uses very shocking images which create an often sickening mood. The first simile that Owen uses is “bent double, like old beggars under sacks”. This is totally unexpected as an army is supposed to be smart and well dressed, as poets such as Jessie Pope have been telling the British public in newspapers and by propaganda that the war is “The red crashing game of a fight”. This image that Pope is trying to get across is that “The Great War” is basically nothing more than children fighting in a playground. Also in contrast to the image that Owen is using is the poem “The Two Mothers” by Matilda Betham-Edwards another respected poet of the early 20th century. She writes “Poor woman weeping as they pass, Yon brave recruits, the nation’s pride”.
This give the appearance that the solders are smartly dressed and well equipped. At this stage they would have been well dressed and well equipped but as time went on equipment would have been damaged and uniforms ripped and destroyed but the machine guns. “Many had lost their boots, but limped on, blood shot”. This is the more realistic view of soldiers, I can almost feel the pain and suffering of being half awake but being told to shoot at an enemy that they have never seen face to face.
In the second verse, colour is used to make the scene more stunning, and also more exciting. The “green sea” is referring to the green colour of the chlorine gas.
The third verse begins by describing a soldier who has been gassed. The soldiers “hanging face” that Owen compares to a “devils sick of sin” is suggesting that the pain and agony that the soldier went through was unimaginable. So great that even the devil the source of evil and pain is sick of it. This is horrifying that someone could go through such pain but yet still be alive. Owen also goes on to use single word to shock his readers, and to convey his feelings. He uses powerful and sickening word to represent the soldier who has been gassed. “He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning”. These words are very disgusting. They sound like someone trying to breathe, but choking.
When Owen is describing the effects of war in him, he writes “if in some smothering dream”. This implies that there is no way out of the terrible situation and the appalling conditions and that it affects every aspect of soldier’s lives in the trenches. In the last verse it states “We flung him in,” I believe that this means that once dead solders had little or no respect and that there were so many dead that they had to use wagons to carry the deceased away. In the last four lines Owen says “My friend, you would not tell of such high zest, to children ardent for some desperate glory, the old lie: Dulce et decorum est, Pro patria mori”. Owen writes this to be directed towards Jessie Pope as in many of her poems she writes of the “honour” of war and how is the biggest “Game” around.
The images in the “Charge of the Light Brigade” are very majestic and noble. The mood is very different and even heroic. The first image created is “the valley of Death”. “Death” has a capital “D”. I think this is because Tennyson’s personifying “Death” and he assumes a human form such as the “Grim Reaper”. If this is the case it implies that the soldiers death will be quick and painless when they enter the valley. “The jaws of Death” and “the mouth of Hell” this implies that death will consume them and that there is a physical entrance to hell.
What makes this poem more heroic is that the “soldiers” rode “boldly” into the “valley of Death”, and many of them also came out untouched. A heroic scene is created when the General says: “Forward the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns”. This gives the image of heroes on horseback, charging fearlessly toward the guns, when they know they will be killed but do not question their orders. “Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die”. This would appeal to the young men at the time and would encourage them to join the army.
The forth verse says “Charging an army, while all the world wondered” by reminding the reader that the Light Brigade is charging a whole army it seems more courageous and brave, than reckless as they succeeded.
Tennyson directly describes the soldiers as “heroes”, “while horse and hero fell, they that had fought so well”. This makes me feel sorry for the soldier at he should die after bravely fighting the enemy. Tennyson uses words such as “boldly”, “forward”, “charge”, “flashed”, “shattered”, “sundered”, “stormed”, “hero”, “glory”, and “honour” to put into words the bravery and heroism of the men.
The sounds in “Dulce et Decorum est” give an impression of the terrible conditions and agonising deaths. Words such as “coughing”, “guttering”, “gargling”, “bitter” and “deaf”. In the “Charge of the Light Brigade” the words are very soft, for instance “half”, “volleyed”, “reeled”, “fought”, “sabring” and “honour”. This makes the poem all the more euphemistic, and less shocking. “The Charge of the Light Brigade” does not show the effects of war on people. This could be because Lord Tennyson was not in the Crimean war, and also because the terrible effects of war on people would interfere with the heroic, noble atmosphere that he is trying to create. Wilfred Owen shows the effects of war on him right up to his death in 1918.
The last few lines of each poem sum up the mood and the motion of poems, and the attitudes of the writers on war. The last few lines of Tennyson’s poem reads. “Honour the charge they made! Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred”. Tennyson feels that the charge of the Light brigade was not stupid but brave and noble. We can clearly see his glorious view of war epitomised here. The closing lines of “Dulce et Decorum est” “my friend, you would not tell with such zest to children ardent for some desperate glory, the old lie Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori”. Owen is criticising the people that wrote of war in terms of nobility and glory. Owen indicates that it is not glorious to die for your country, but reckless and irrational. Owen goes further to say that the writers of glorious war poems have even lied to the young people, and sent them to the front line to die in their millions. He himself could have been one of those poets that pushed the young men into joining the arm as he wrote “The Ballad of Peace and War” in this poem he writes “But sweeter still and far more meet, To die in war for brothers…” this contrasts strongly to his poems written at the front. Maybe he had to realise himself that war was not glorious, as he had once thought.
In my opinion the “Charge of the Light Brigade” does not have as much impact as “Dulce et Decorum est”. Although the pace of the “Charge of the Light Brigade is magnificent “Dulce et Decorum est” is more realistic and more creditable as Wilfred Owen actually fought in war and knew what it felt like.