All three poems use a rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme in “The send-off” doesn’t dominate the poem; it doesn’t do this because the rhyme goes between the verses even though it is regular rhyme. The hidden rhyme suggests that the rhyme compares to the soldiers. Hidden “down the close darkening lanes” they were sent-off “so secretly, like wrongs hushed-up.” The rhyme adds to the fact of hidden soldiers
“To the siding-shed,
And lined the trains with faces grimly gay.
Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray
As men’s are dead.”
These rhyming words are in different verses this hides the rhyme scheme and the soldiers in the poem. The rhyme scheme in “Dulce et decorum est” sets the pace and rhythm of the poem. At the beginning of the poem the rhyme is very slow like the soldiers so the pace of the poem is slow”like old beggars under sacks.” During the second verse the rhyme scheme speeds up and so does the rhythm Gas! Gas! Quick boys!” The rhyme scheme is a main part of the poem. The rhyme scheme in “Disabled” links with flashes back and forth in the poem, from what life is like now for him and what life was like for him before the war “When glow-lamps budded in the light blue trees and girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim, in the old times, before he threw away his knees.” This shows us that Owen is trying to link both past and present. By linking the rhyme with different parts of the poem this makes the rhyme scheme not stand out a lot in the poem. In all three poems by Wilfred Owen the rhyme schemes are a big part in all of the poems even if they are not dominating in two of the poems.
All three poems use very strong imagery. In the poem “The send-off” when the men are described as “grimly gay” this creates an image of the men feeling nothing because grim and gay are opposites so therefore cancel each other out this is called an oxymoran. The phrase “their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray.” Creates the image that the men are already dead. Also “signals nodded, and a lamp winked.” This creates the imagery of secrecy between the train and the guard this means that everyone knows something that the soldiers do not, it also creates personification. In the poem “Dulce et decorum est” the imagery creates horror Owen does this to show war is not a game like the people who create propaganda poems lead people to believe. This poem is the image people at home do not expect “bent double, like old beggars.” There is an image when there is a gas attack one of the men “was yelling out and stumbling.” The imagery in the last verse is the worst of all it is obscene having the image of “froth corrupted lungs, obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud of vile incurable sores on innocent tongues.” This makes war sound nasty and horrible and create a really shocking image of war and puts strong images in our minds. The poem “Disabled” uses colourless grey imagery which is in contrast to the vibrant colour of the town with the “glow-lamps.” The colourless is non-human also the image of a man with no arms or legs. Owen relates the blood in the mans body to the life of the town. “He’s lost his colour very far from here, poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry and half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race and leap of purple spurted from his thigh. The town was full of colour like him, now he is colourless and cannot appreciate the colour of the town. This gives us the image of the life that is lost “before he threw away his knees. All of the three poems are written with words which create lots of vivid imagery in our minds.
Owen deals with each aspect of war in a very similar way. He deals with before the soldiers go to war, in “The send-off” he thinks it is wrong to send the soldiers off to war without them knowing what is happening, unlike all of the other people who know their outcomes of death. In “Dulce et decorum est” he thinks it is wrong that people make propaganda poems to make men join the war when they do not know the overall out come for them. In the poem “Disabled” he looks at what happens to a solider after the war and puts responsibility on the man because he “threw away his knees.” He uses rhyme and strong imagery to portray his views of war to the reader. Wilfred Owen’s overall message is that war is not jolly and joyful it is cruel and nasty.
