‘Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge’
This uses alliteration and describes very well what the soldiers are now like. The first stanza is just setting the scene as to what the soldiers are like. It is all very calm. But then in the second stanza there is a sudden quickening of pace, reflected by a sudden gas attack by the Germans. In the panic Wilfred Owen describes the situation as ‘an ecstasy of fumbling’ as the soldiers are hurrying to get the gas masks on in time before they breath the deadly mustard gas. Unfortunately there are not enough gas masks for everyone and Owen has to witness one of his friends suffocated in the mustard gas. He tells it like this,
‘Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning’
In this he uses simile, Owen describes the gas as a green sea, which the soldier is drowning in, but is actually choking, on gas. It shows that this memory sticks with him because what he says next is very effective to the reader.
‘In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.’
If Owen would have lived that would probably been a memory he would relive over and over again in his dreams. I could imagine that seeing something like that happening to someone you know scares you to death.
The next stanza is effective to the reader also as Owen addresses the reader, saying what it would be like for them to be in the war and cart off someone you care about. He describes the awful things that happened to the soldier. At the end of the stanza Owen addresses the reader again and says,
‘My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.’
This translates into ‘How sweet it is to die for one’s country. So in this poem Owens attitude to the war is a negative one.
In The Last Laugh, Owen tells of the many ways in which soldiers died during the war and what they said as they were dying. Throughout the poem He uses personification to describe the sounds that the weapons make as they are being fired or being exploded.
In the first stanza Owen goes straight into the fact that people are dying all around him. He tells of a person who has just been shot by the enemy. As the soldier is dying he says ‘O Jesus Christ! I’m hit’ and then died. Owen then questions if the soldier was cursing or if he was praying to have his soul saved. In this stanza Owen uses personification to make the weapons sound alive. One example of this is ‘The Bullets chirped- In vain! Vain! Vain!’ This is effective as it shows that the weapons are dangerous and they are mocking you, because if you are hit you know you are in trouble, because there may be no medical attention.
In the second stanza another young soldier dies. We know he is young because as this soldier is dying he thinks of his mother and his father. When he is hit he sighs and says ‘O mother, mother! Dad!’ and then dies also. We know that this is a happy memory for the young soldier because as he dies he has a smile upon his face. And again Owen uses personification to describe the sounds that the weapons make. In this stanza Owen uses this,
‘And the lofty shrapnel-cloud
Leisurely gestured, -fool
And the falling splinters tittered’
It is as if Owen is using this personification to mock the soldiers himself because the shrapnel cloud gestures ‘fool’ and the falling splinters ‘tittered’. It is as if Owen is saying that it was foolish to join the war.
In the third stanza there is more use of personification. He describes the bayonets on the guns as long teeth, which are grinning. Owen says the rabbles of shells hooted and groaned. The gas is described as hissing. Owen makes the gas sound deadly as if it is a poisonous snake. Owen also describes the death of another soldier. This time though the soldier calls out for his love. As he is doing this his face slowly sinks into the mud. Owens opinion of the war through this poem is again a negative one.
In conclusion the poets of the First World War do not know what they are talking about. Wilfred Owen on the other hand does know what he is talking g about because he was in the war and he experienced the brutal horror of what for the soldiers was normal everyday life. Unfortunately Owen was killed himself just a few weeks before the war ended, so what he did write was actually happening to him whilst he was in the trenches. Owen tells it like it is, that war is brutal and how sweet it is not to die for ones country. Jessie Pope wrote World War 1 poetry but she knew nothing about what it was like to actually be there. Jessie Pope’s poetry encouraged young people to go to fight and die for Britain. All it was, was just propaganda.