The next stanza is in contrast to the slow fatigue of the first stanza. It begins with an exclamation ‘Gas! GAS! Quick…’ which shocks the reader instantly as it would’ve shocked the soldiers. The rhythm is quicker and there is a panic to get the gas masks on, ‘an ecstasy of fumbling’ to fasten on the helmets. The soldiers are all worrying ‘fitting on the helmets just in time’. It’s not natural have to put these ‘clumsy helmets’ on. Then the tension softens and the reader is relieved to find they fir them ‘just in time’ but then it quickly comes to the readers’ notice that there is a man left behind with out a mask. Owen tells what happens to the man through his mask, everything he saw. He uses verbs in the present tense like ‘yelling out’ and ‘stumbling’ to give the reader a sense of reality. The lines run into each other using ‘and’ to give the impression of a continuous motion “and stumbling’
And flound’ring’
The pain of gas destroying the man’s lungs is described using a simile ‘…like a man in fire or lime…
As under a green sea…’
This makes us think of someone drowning or on fire. There’s no sense of hope, there’s just pain and horror. We haven’t actually seen anyone killed by gas but we know what it might be like to be too hot or to struggle for breath while swimming. Owen brings the scene to a reality that we have experienced so that we can visualise the horror ourselves. Then there’s a gap which separates what happened then and his feelings now. It obviously still affects him, ‘In all my dreams, before my helpless sight’. The memories still terrify him, and he relives that day over in his nightmares ‘He plunges at me, guttering…’ he feels guilty and disguisted with himself for leaving the soldier. During that space it’s as if there should be silence, it’s like Owen he is taking a deep breath to try and take in all his memories that he’s reliving by writing this poem.
In the last stanza of the poem Owen is directly addressing the propagandists and us personally asking whether ‘you too could pace… Behind the wagon that we flung him in,”
There’s so much lack of care because there is so much death one more doesn’t matter, that’s where the stanza’s power comes from. The alliteration of the ‘w’ ‘watch the white eyes writhing in his face’ is a very bitter and angry sound. He’s referring to God, but there’s nothing Godly going on, it’s more of the devils work ‘like devil’s sick of sin’. The whole battlefield is like hell, Owen uses vile images and language to convey the horror of seeing this man. ‘the froth-corrupted lungs,’the war is compared to the most terrible things imaginable, ‘obscene as cancer…vile incurable sores on innocent tongues.’ Owen ends by telling who he calls ‘friends’ that they would not lie about it being honourable to die for your country, ad definitely not to ‘children ardent for some desperate glory’ because children are easily influenced, they’re innocent. Therefore shouldn’t be misled in such a crafty way.
‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ by Alfred Tennyson is also a war poem but isn’t about a true experience, it’s about glorifying dying in war. Tennyson writes what people want to hear, he gets his information from newspaper articles. ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ is based during 1861 at the Crimean War where the Light Brigade had the command to charge at the Russians where they were waiting with firearms. The 600 men armed only with sabres could not match the Russian guns and cannons and not many survived the Battle at Balaclava.
Tennyson wants you to celebrate the glory of death while fighting for your country. He wants you to honour and admire the soldiers of the Light Brigade ‘When can their glory fade? … Honour the charge they made!’
Tennyson uses images of death and hell to portray the terror of the battle scene, ‘Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell’
The personification of death and hell implies that death is waiting for the soldiers and they’re heading is so horrifying for the soldiers it resembles hell, ‘valley of Death’. Tennyson also capitalizes the ‘D’ in death as if it’s a place which emphasises the amount of death there was.
Repetition is one of the techniques often used by Tennyson in ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’. This technique is used to emphasise different stages of the poem. The first two lines, also repetition, establish a rhythm and a tempo of horses galloping.
‘Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,’
Those words also suggest the movement of the soldiers as well ‘Rode the six hundred’, ‘Forward, the Light Brigade’ All these suggestions of movement help the reader imagine these six hundred soldiers charging into battle.
The obedience of the soldiers towards what they’ve been ordered to do is also emphasised using repetition and rhyme,
‘Theirs’ not to make reply,
Theirs’ not to reason why,
Theirs’ but to do or die.’
These lines suggest to the reader the soldiers’ sense of loyalty and duty, which overcomes their fear of death and what faces them ahead ‘into the valley of Death’
‘Cannon to the right of them,
Cannon to the left of them,
Cannon in front of them,’
These lines put the reader in the shoes of those soldiers approaching the Russians. It gives you the sense of claustrophobia and it brings the reality of them being surrounded with these cannons. These lines are repeated in the fifth stanza, when the remaining soldiers are retreating with ‘cannon behind them’ which makes it clear to us that these soldiers were retreating and running away from these cannons.
Tennyson uses the use of onomatopoeia verbs and alliteration effectively, and they help recreate the sights, sounds and actions of the battle. ‘Stormed at with shot and shell’, is an example of alliteration, used so you can almost hear the gunshot in the syllables. It is also used to portray the constant attack of the firearms and weapons, but despite
