‘Who’ll give his country a hand’?
She persuades the men to join the army by making them feel deceitful and cowardly if they were to
‘ Than lie low and be out of the fun’
Or
‘Take a seat in the stand’?
She also has a friendly manner in her propaganda poem as she refers to the men as ‘lads’. She persuades the men into joining the forces with her assumption that they’ll
‘But you’ll come on alrite’.
She makes the country more appealing and dependable upon their support when she gives it a female gender. This capitalises on the sexist attitude of the era where men were expected to take care of and protect their women.
Pope has written this poem in four parts with a regular rhythm and rhyme scheme. This makes the poem more memorable. This is also a technique employed in children’s poetry and as such makes light of her subject matter.
Wilfred Owen is not totally against war, but, as it says at the end of the poem, the old lie:
Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori or
It is sweet and fitting
To die for your country
He is very angry about this lie that is being told to young men and the citizens of England that are back at home, not fighting. Wilfred Owen also believes in honour, and doing what you believe in. He believes in telling all of England what it is really like on the front line.
The title of Wilfred Owens poem, which is “Dulce et decorum esti”, means It is sweet and fitting. This is baffling at first, because unless you read the whole poem, you won’t understand. What the poem actually goes on to say is (Dulce est Decorem) “Pro patria mori” or to die for your country.
Owens poem is written using a lot of images. He writes in such a way that you can see exactly what he’s describing. You can really empathise with what he’s writing. The structure of Owens poem reinforces the message by making it run smoothly. So that when a short section of the horror comes in the middle it reflects the shock Owen feels when the gas hits one of his friends. This is also the only place in the poem where a descriptive word is repeated, as though Owen can’t quite believe what is happening.
Owens intention is to get people to think about the lie that was told to many people about the First World War; about what was said happened in the trenches and what actually did. Owen try’s to get his anger and frustration about what happened across to people and I think that even today, it does work. The poem has an affect on me that must have been even worse fifty years ago. It makes me feel very sad that this sort of thing did happen, that people died in such a way as this, and angry that the soldiers didn’t know what they were going towards, that the families didn’t know how their men suffered or died.