George and Lennie- COmparison and Contrast

David Urlanda George and Lennie (Comparison and Contrast) In the novel Of Mice and Men, the main characters George and Lennie were brought up closed to us. Through the first several pages of the book, these two characters were visualized. "George was small and quick, dark of face, with restless eyes and sharp, strong features. Every part of him was defined: small, strong hands, slender arms, a thin body and nose." While Lennie the opposite of George, "is a huge man, shapeless of face, with large pale eyes and with sloping shoulders." John Steinbeck describes these two characters as the opposite of each other. He describes Lennie as big man who thinks just like a child, and George as a small and a strong man. Steinbeck differentiates George and Lennie from each other on their mental and physical appearance and strength, George a small man and his opposite Lennie a huge man. In their physical appearance George was visualized with defined body parts and with strong features while Lennie with a shapelss face. In terms of mental ability, Steinbeck said that Lennie has a mild mental disorder that made him the weakest character in the novel. While George, compared to Lennie, he is the boss, he decides on everything they will do and Lennie depends on what he say. George and Lennie traveled together, since Lennie's Aunt Clara died. They are both migratory workers seeking

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Compare and contrast 'MCMXIV' by Philip Larkin and 'Six Young Men' by Ted Hughes.

Compare and contrast 'MCMXIV' by Philip Larkin and 'Six Young Men' by Ted Hughes. The First World War was a landmark event in the twentieth century. In terms of social attitude, it marked a transition from a stable orderly world to a more modern age, and with that "modern" age there came a brutal, cynical view of society's government and a lack of trust in its leaders. First World War poets like Siegfried Sassoon expressed this hardened and more savage viewpoint in their poetry attacking the military leaders and governments, and this change of view and tone (from innocent to cynical) has been of interest to poets of the following generations. The poems I am going to compare and contrast, 'MCMXIV' by Philip Larkin and 'Six Young men' by Ted Hughes, were both written at least half a century after the First World War. This shows the importance of the event to modern writers and this distance in time gives them a kind of perspective. Fifty years on, they can see that World War I had no final good purpose and that all that World War I did for Great Britain was not to make it safer or better but just to change the way of life they had always known. How dramatically it was changed in social terms is the subject of Larkin's poem, whilst Hughes's poem talks about the impact it had on individual young men of the time. 'MCMXIV' by Philip Larkin Larkin's poem consists of four stanzas,

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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A Comparison Of 'Dulce Et Decorum Est' And 'Suicide In The Trenches'

A Comparison Of 'Dulce Et Decorum Est' And 'Suicide In The Trenches' The lies and illusions promising glory in war were cast aside by two poets during World War One, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. These poets have written many famous poems but when comparing the two most famous poems of the poets, Siegfried Sassoon's "Suicide in the trenches" and Wilfred Owen's "Dulce Et Decorum Est", an immediate conclusion can be drawn about the contents of the poems. "Suicide in the trenches" which gives an impression of despite being in the trenches, men were not only being killed by the brutal pounding of enemy fire but were killing themselves. Wilfred Owen's poem "Dulce Et Decorum Est" however seems to give the opposite impression at first as the Latin saying translates into: "It is fitting and honorable to die for your country," but, ironically, the meaning of the poem is the opposite. The poet has chosen this title deliberately so he can display it in a sarcastic manner. The poem "Dulce Et Decorum Est" is, therefore, not about dying gloriously or patriotically for your country but instead the horrors of the way the soldiers died. "Suicide in the trenches" focuses on the meaningless life in the trenches and that a quick death ends it all where as "Dulce Et Decorum Est" focuses on the suffering and torture of a slow death. Sassoon's style of poetry and language is simplistic

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Presentation of Suffering in Dulce et Decorum est and The Sentry

How does Owen convey the suffering of the soldiers in the Sentry and Dulce et Decorum est? In both the poems "The Sentry", and "Dulce et Decorum est", Wilfred Owen create a strong impression of the suffering of the soldiers involved, both at the time of the incidents portrayed, and the time lapsed since those incidents. Dulce et Decorum est tells the story of the death of one of Owen's men in a gas attack. In the first stanza, the use of hyperbole is a strong technique illustrating the torment of the soldiers. For example, lines such as: "Men marched asleep." And "All went lame, all blind" are blatant exaggerations, but subsequently convey the overwhelming nature of the soldiers' exhaustion and pain. Consequently, I feel that the use of such ideas as "Men marched asleep" gives the impression of the soldiers' psychological detachment from their own bodies - they have been subjected to so much stress and trauma that their minds no longer work in the same way as their bodies. This is a clear symptom of shell shock, and is evident in The Sentry also: "And splashing in the flood, deluging muck - / the sentry's body; then his rifle". The selection of the words "The sentry's body" rather than simply "The sentry" gives the idea that the man's body fell down the steps first, and that his mind may have followed later, as if he were in a trance, or were particularly panicked. Owen

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  • Word count: 1310
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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