“Half a league, Half a league,
Half a league and onward”
He uses terrifying sounding words such as “The valley of death”, “The jaws of death”, and “The mouth of hell”, to describe what the soldiers had to face. By doing this he makes the soldiers sound as brave as possible by facing these terrible things, and honourable and fearless. He doesn’t hide the horrors of war but he doesn’t describe things with that much detail, as he wants the soldiers deaths to sound Nobel.
Tennyson creates an atmosphere of high spirits by using repetition
“Cannon to the right of them,
Cannon to the left of them,
Cannon in front of them”
This repetition also makes the soldiers sound surrounded and so therefore brave to go on and fight with their all, as he shows in the lines:
“Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell”
The idea of making them sound even braver is what Tennyson has based his poem on. He shows the bravery of the soldiers with vivid images by using words to show their actions and by repeating the first word on both lines.
“Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air,
Sabring the gunners there”
Tennyson shows how obedient the soldiers are as they do as they are commanded, as they know that it is right to fight and give life for your county in the face of certain death and this is what people at home should also think.
“Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.”
In the final stanza Tennyson sums up the poem in the sense of the never-ending bravery of the soldiers, he does this by using rhetorical questions
“When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made…
Honour the charge they made,
Honour the Light Brigade
Nobel six hundred!”
Also the use of the repetition of “The Six Hundred” at the end of every stanza reminds the reader of the great sacrifice made and loss of life in the battle but they are a “Nobel Six Hundred” and so are shown as heroes who lost their lives for their country and they are never to be forgotten.
Owen’s ‘Dulce’ is the complete opposite to Tennson’s ‘Light Brigade’, he wants to show the truth and horror of how the soldiers like him saw the battle close up and the death that they could not escape from. Owen based his poem around the single line “Dulce et Decorum Est Pro patria mori” (it is sweet and fitting to die for your country), he wanted to show that it is far from sweet and fitting but horrible and unjustified, from start to finish.
“… you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et Decorum Est
Pro patria mori”
This final stanza sums up what Owen wanted to get across to the reader, that if you knew the truth as he did you wouldn’t be so happy to tell children about the war just for a bit of glory for your country, it’s not something suitable for children’s ears.
He gives this image of the awfulness of war from the very start in stanza one. He gives a different image of the soldiers from what you would expect, soldiers are thought of as respectable, smart and proud men but the picture Owen paints is unpleasant and ghastly. The soldiers are described as
“Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed…”
Owen puts across the truth to the reader about how the soldiers felt and looked like and it adds to how unpleasant the war was for the men
“Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shot”
He describes the men like this as he still wants the reader to know that the men had courage to go even though they were tired and wounded but wants the reader to realise that it was a struggle for them. These men are the opposite to Tennyson’s image of the “Nobel six hundred”, the images of Owen’s would shock those back home who would think that war was ‘sweet and fitting’ but clearly its is bitter and he captures this very well. The first stanza is slow and words such as “trudge” show this, as they are not literally marching as Owen says but slowly making their way for rest from the trenches. We can see that the soldiers’ main aim is to get to a place of safety and not defend our country, as they are so numb with the experience of war.
Owen writes in third person as to remind us, the readers that he was there and knows what the war was truly like, he used words like “we” and “I” when talking about the men so the picture is created as he is part of this dreadful action.
The second stanza is quite different to the first, as it is full of action and starts with the centre of the action
“Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time”
The use of the word “ecstasy” is a good way to show that the soldiers are very tired and without action and then all of a sudden there was a rush of adrenaline. The soldiers are uncoordinated and the word “fumbling” presents that the soldiers were unready for an attack, to defend themselves and too tired to put on their masks quickly and without hassle. When the reader realises that one man has not got his gas mask on in time it shows the horror
“…yelling out and stumbling
and floundering like a man on fire or lime.”
This is not a glorious death and by using vivid words like “guttering, chocking, drowning” the onomatopoeia makes the reader feel like Owen himself did, and imagine seeing the soldier dying from poisonous gas. The words used to describe the dying man not only describe the man in pain but shows he is suffering.
“I all my dreams, before my helpless sight”
Owen felt as if he was helpless and wished he could help his fellow soldier, his clever use of words makes the reader also feel this way.
‘Dulce’ plainly presents death as a terrible thing and not a nice way to die for your country’s benefit.
“…flung him in,
... the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin”
The line “face, like a devil’s sick of sin” in particular shows how horrible and unsightly his face was, a devil would never get sick of sin and so that shows just how strange and horrible his face must have been, this makes the reader think about how dreadful it must have been to be so horrendous. The words describe the man’s torture and Owen uses every opportunity he gets to fill the poem with ugly and unimaginable images. The fact that they “flung him in” says just how death at war was not respectable and every dead body was treated as a piece of meat not a human being anymore, surely this alone shows how unjust it was to die for your country.
Owen gives us a detailed description of what it was personally like to be in the war, he writes in first person “I saw…” and describes one mans death which he experienced close up. Compared to Tennyson’s impersonal “Nobel six hundred” which attacked and weren’t taken by surprise while unprepared. Owen’s wants us to imagine for ourselves what it was like as if we were there experiencing the ordeal and not to glorify the war anymore it is not a glorious thing. Tennyson wants us to think of the war as a Nobel thing to go and fight and it is honourable if you show braveness and fearlessness, the two poems are completely the opposite to each other. I think that out of the two ‘Dulce’ is the most touching and powerful, it is the closest you could get to war, the tragedy and pain without actually being there. It helps that Owen was there and can relate to the ordeal himself and so can help people to understand the truths and meanings of war, it uncovers lies of the propaganda and criticises war in general.
