Compare and Contrast Wilfred Owens ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ and Rupert Brookes ‘The Soldier’

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Compare and Contrast Wilfred Owens 'Dulce et Decorum Est' and Rupert Brookes 'The Soldier'

Both of these poems concentrate on the war, but both in very different ways one is very pro-war and the other is very anti-war and they both discuss their ideas in very different ways approaching there readers with very different Ideas. Rupert Brooke tells of war as a sweet and lovely thing while on the other hand Owen tells of it, as an old lie told by the monarchy.

Owen tried to get his message through to his readers by shocking them with horrific mental images,

"If you could hear every jolt, the blood

Comes gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile as incurable sores on innocent tongues"

He uses words with frightening and repulsive meanings, and he tries to get all your senses working by letting feel, see and hear everything, e.g. you can see 'froth, and you can hear someone 'gargling'. He also tries to make it all seem unfair 'innocent tongues' throughout the poem he uses harsh sounding words. He wants you to feel as if you were on the field he wanted you to see every physical detail and he made sure that it was all real and not just the stereotype of flags, duties and heroic deeds. He definitely doesn't agree with people like Jessy Pope who used nice pretty words to hide the true ugly fact of war. So he used sick disgusting words to send the real picture home. The whole poem is about a group of soldiers who are being bombed with gas and he describes every single sick moment. Dulce et Decorum est tells of the true effects of the war on the soldiers. It tells of present experiences rather than future that are postulated in The Soldier. Dulce et Decorum est is targeted at the establishment, tabloid pro-war poets, particularly Jessie Pope, who were oblivious of the hideous situation which young men were being sent. This poem focuses on the truth whilst The Soldier is wild tales. Truth is extremely powerful; Wilfred Owen uses his personal experience to give a very realistic picture. He states the situation as being his worst nightmare, but in reality, he is incapable to stop. His involvement as the soldier begs for his help, this he cannot deliver. Adjectives ending in ing prompt the reader feel part of Owen's trauma, as the sound of the g is rough, mimicking the suffering of the soldier caught in mustard gas.
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"In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning"

Immediate separation with Wilfred Owen and the dying soldier is shown metaphorically. Distantly, Owen watches the figure drowning in the sea, as viewed through a porthole window in a ship. Metaphorically the sea shows the might of the ocean, in a storm, and the rescuers powerless to perform their task. Moreover, there is little practical purpose of assisting a soldier in mustard gas, as other soldiers are much exhausted themselves.

"Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

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