‘What passing bells for these who die as cattle?’
This is comparing the soldiers to cattle and stating that in the battlefield the soldiers die in such great masses that they can be easily compared to cattle who get murdered in slaughtered houses.
‘Only the stuttering rifles rapid rattle’
This line contains onomatopoeia; ‘Stuttering rifles....’ This represents the sound the guns make when fired. Also this line has alliteration; ‘Rifles rapid rattle.’ This helps you set the scene of the massacring battlefield. The poem has personification within it;
‘Only the monstrous anger of the guns’
This illustrates that the gun has anger, a personality if you will. Which theoretically speaking is incorrect. This helps you understand that the artillery and guns were killing machines. The whole poem is comparing an oblivious unknown death on the battlefield, to a traditional funeral. This is proved by such lines as;
‘Nor any voice of mourning saves the choirs’
‘The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells’
These two lines are saying that;
- There were no hymns sung by any choir for the men who lost their lives on the battlefield.
- There were only the sounds of the wailing shells that represent the choir
Also wailing shells is personification, as shells cannot literally wail. Owen is comparing the sound of the shells to the sound of a human or animal in pain. The poem is all about death on the battlefield, the way in which soldiers are not given the recognition they deserve individually, but in numbers and battalions.
‘Dulce et decorum’ is also a very famous poem by Owen. It’s about a gas attack on the battlefield and the havoc that plays through it. It talks about the chocking and dying of the soldiers by the horrific mustard gas in WW1. The opening line is;
‘Bent double, like beggars under sacks,’
This is a simile; it compares the chocking and coughing soldiers to the homeless people on the streets. Similes are a way of comparing one thing to another.
‘Men marched asleep,’
This is a metaphor; it is exaggerating the point that the soldiers were exhausted and were almost falling asleep as they marched.
‘Gas! Gas!’
This is another example of alliteration; also this line could be classed as onomatopoeia, as the as the sound of the words imitate the sound of the gas.
‘Under a green sea I saw him drowning,’
This line contains two metaphors. The first is suggesting that the gas is so thick and green that its similar to a green sea. The next is stating that the effect of the horrific gas is one which can make you drown in your own blood.
‘In my dreams before my helpless eyes’
‘He plunges at me guttering, chocking, drowning’
These two lines stand alone in the poem. This is because it is a frightful and nightmarish memory that would have stuck with Owen till his passing day. The memory is obviously catered from a nightmare as you can interpret from the first three words.
‘If you could hear at every jolt, the blood’
This line is personally talking to the reader and his speech is about his experiences. This line is horrific and puts a very gory image in your mind. This is imagery; it is to create a point that remains static in your mind.
‘Pro patria mori’
This is the last line in the poem and means; ‘sweet and fitting to die for ones country.’ This line is placed hear to show the poems content is all f or this line. It could also be classed as ironic. The poem is all about showing the reader in his or her mind the effects of the attacks in WW1. Wilfred is using the poem as a warning stating that; it is not sweet and fitting to die for ones country.
My final poem is ‘Disabled’. The poems content is within the title itself. The poem is different to the alterative as it is about one war victim. About a boy who joined the army under age. He did this because;
- He was intoxicated
- He wanted to impress some girls.
‘He’d look a god in kilts’
This line says two things. The first is that someone persuaded him to join and the second id that it proves the fact the regiment is in Scotland.
‘Aye that was it, to please the giddy jilts’
This line also proves the fact that he joined up to impress the giddy jilts, which is a Scottish term for young women. The piece of writing is about this boy having his legs blown off in battle hence the name ‘Disabled’.
‘He sat in a wheeled chair waiting for dark’
‘And shivered I his ghastly suit of grey.’
These two lines are a part of the boy’s future, as if he cannot do anything but sit and wait for the next day to come in a grey suit. The colour of the suit represents sadness.
‘Legless sawn short at the elbow.’
This leg states that the victim has no limbs but one arm and half an arm, thus stitched up at the elbow.
‘Through the park voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn.’
This line contains a simile and shows the disable-bodied mean is becoming more unhappy and distraught every day, as he could not walk or pay sports like the boys he can hear at the nearby park.
‘He’s lost his colour far away from hear.’
This line is an intense understatement; it is implying he has lost all the blood from his face. Instead of making this line more gruesome and horrifying, Owen kept it subtle and braceful.
‘It was after football when he drunk a peg’
‘He thought he’d better join, he wonders why?’
This is a flashback of the night he signed up and as it indicates he does wonder why he threw away his mobility.
‘Tonight he notices women’s eyes’
‘How they pass though him to strong whole men’
This line is creating sympathy for the former soldier, and is stating that women do not look at him the way they used to, but they look at ‘whole’ men that way.
Whole meaning possessing all four limbs.
‘How cold and late it is, why don’t they come?’
‘And put him into bed why don’t they come?’
This line is the finishing line and ends with a question. The people he is talking could either be; carers, women, who before would have gone to bed with him or even family or friends. This poem is based on one man, and his future of decent and unhappiness, and that it can ruin your life because of one drunken mistake.
‘Anthem for doomed youth’, ‘Dulce et decorum’ and ‘Disabled’ from the talented author Wilfred Owen. His entire poems (post WW1) are against war propaganda. The poems arte trying to shock and mainly inform you of what really goes on in a battlefield. It is stating how no man should die for there country, without their total honer.
(1500 words)
