Caroline Gillinder

Liz Little – A2

Which account has the most powerful impact on you and why?

The Sentry and the letter, that Wilfred Owen wrote, are both powerful accounts of the war. Personally, both accounts become more effective as Owen experienced war first hand. Due to Owen’s first hand experiences he could use honesty as a form of dramatic effect. Although, because people knew Owen was a soldier of war, he could exaggerate to the reader to provide another form of dramatic effect.

   The purposes, of both the poem and the letter, is to show how horrendous the war actually was. The Sentry goes further to explain a particular incident using speech as, ‘he whined, “Oh sir, my eyes”’. This helps you visualise a realistic account of how horrific Owen’s surroundings were at the time. The purpose explaining the war, to the readers of the poem and to his mother through the letter, was because Owen knew that people at home away from war didn’t have any knowledgable facts about what was truthfully going on. The poem helps show the reader what was going through Owen’s mind at the time of the war aswell.

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The poem’s last stanza explains the mental distress that people went through during war as Owen tried, ‘not to remember’ the traumatic events going on around him. In my opinion, this gives the poem a powerful impact as it shows the reader that the war was not just horrific at the time but horrific within your long term momory aswell. The letter only describes the effects on a day to day basis. In this case, the letter can also be effective because it gives a detailed account of the suffering he went through each day.

To gives both texts ...

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