Discussing two poems, War Photographer by Carol Ann Duffy and Dulce et decorum est by Wilfred Owen respectively.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Today I’m going to focus mainly on two poems, War Photographer by Carol Ann Duffy and Dulce et decorum est by Wilfred Owen respectively. Both of them are war poems but are written from different perspectives. War Photographer is from the point of view of a war photographer and Dulce et decorum est is written from the view of a soldier. We can observe the contrast between different roles performed by different people in war. The soldiers are the one doing all the fighting in the frontline, which seems that it will never end, and is highlighted by the phrase “and towards our distant rest began to trudge.” “Distant rest” can symbolize death, as the soldiers can only rest and achieve peace through death, having a meaning that the soldiers have to fight on until the moment they die. As for the tasks of the photographer, he has to snap shots on the battlefield, capturing the sufferings of both the soldiers and the public. Though the speaker did not directly portray the war photographer filming the sufferers in war but she did hinted so by the line “with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.” Referring to the films which show real faces of war victims. And also this line “solutions slop in trays between his hands which did not tremble then” indicating that the war photographer has frequently experienced war that he is so familiar and professional with his job. Then the war photographer would leave for a safer place, like rural England, carrying the image of their suffering while the sufferers lingered behind on the edge of death. This is shown by the image of safety in the aeroplane looking down on the conflict and bloodshed. Eventually, the war photographer had to organize the photo whish his editor will pick five or six for Sunday’s supplement.
