Stimulus and Response analysis: Dramatic and Literary depictions of war

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Response phase

‘‘War’’

Stimulus text one: part A - poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ by Wilfred  Owen

Mr. Devine opened up our exam to revel that the theme would be war. The class was split into three groups and each group was given the poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ as the first stimulus. We were asked to read it and discuss in our groups what we thought of the

poem and how it portrayed war. At first we thought that the poem would have a positive opinion because of the title, ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’. Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori is a Latin translation for ’it is a beautiful and wonderful thing to die for your country’. However as we read the poem we found the words to be contradictory to the title. We found the poem to be very patriotic. Even from the first line the poet gave a sense of an uncomfortable and dreary atmosphere, ‘Bent double, like old beggars under sacks’. The poem gave a descriptive picture of the negative and gruesome images behind war My group thought that the poet thought war to be based on lies and propaganda; it was portrayed as a wonderful and beautiful thing to die for your country yet truthfully war was horrifying and disturbing. Our group thought the poet believed people should know the truth about war before they sign up. We thought this because the poet images got more and more vile towards the end of the poem, which we thought was a symbol of the poet’s anger and how haunted he was by the things he saw during the war. The poet also gave off a sense of irony, as the people who have allegedly died bravely for their country ended up just ‘flung’ onto wagons in piles.

Stimulus text one: part B - Lord Kitchener poster

In are groups we were then given a Lord Kitchener poster which was idealistically designed to persuade men to join the British army. The poster showed Lord Kitchener looking straight ahead and pointing with the text reading “your country needs YOU”. Our groups where asked to discuss how we felt this linked to the poem. Firstly my group discussed how effective the poster was, we decided that Lord Kitchener was deliberately placed standing forward so that it felt to the onlooker as if it was impossible to escape. It was made to point out every person individually. Additionally we believed that Lord Kitchener was on the poster because of his authority, it gave the onlookers a sense of importance to be ‘NEEDED’ by such an important and powerful man. We found this to be very ironic as we know in the war none of the soldiers were truly important to people as powerful as Lord Kitchener. Also by the choice of words we felt that the poster used propaganda in order to persuade people, to have been politically correct the poster should have said ‘you country wants YOU’ rather than ‘needs’. By stating that ‘your country needs YOU’ the poster is placing the reader with a duty and therefore is pressuring them.  Our group felt that posters like this were exactly what the poem was talking about; Lord Kitchener was preaching ‘The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.’

This emphasised how the poem was designed to portray to people the truth behind the war. In other words the poster is designed to persuade more and more men to join war by giving them a false impression of what war was like.

After discussing both stimulus in our groups we discussed our ideas as a class and wrote up the key points on the board. Most of the key points all the groups agreed on. One of the other groups also thought it was a good idea to extract key words from the poem that strongly portray the poets feelings on war.

After discussing the main points the teacher then asked us to prepare 3 freeze-frames based on the poem and poster.

Freeze-frame 1:‘Bent double’

Freeze-frame 2:‘gas, gas’

Freeze-frame 3:‘Dulce et Decorum Est’

Stimulus text two: video ‘white feather’

The second stimulus was an extract from the video called ‘white feather’. This extract showed a congregation at a church which was interrupted by a man who was outraged that the church spoke so highly of war. The man was taken from the church and after there was a meeting held for women, women were to encourage men to join the war and expected to sign up to help in the hospitals. The speaker went on to say any man that did not join the army was a coward and you should not be seen with such a man or you too are a coward. A white feather would be given as a symbol of a coward and should be warn by all those who are given it. After the meeting the man from the church met his girlfriend outside, she told him that she thinks he must go to war and that she can’t be seen with him if he doesn’t, the man is outraged that the woman has been pressured to think this but the women tells him she is leaving to go help in a hospital anyway. After watching the video we were asked to discuss are reactions. I thought that the video showed how much pressure was put on people in the war. The group agreed that it was unfair to single out anyone just because they had a different opinion and came to the conclusion that bullying was a big part of the war.

Stimulus text three: teacher and pupils in role

The final stimulus was a planned improvisation played by the teacher and pupils in role. Each person was first given a character and told to react to how they think their character would in a similar situation. The basic plot was that the family had tried hide the age of their eldest son so that he would not be taken for war. There was also an elder daughter who knew the truth about the war and wanted to hide it from her family and a young son who wanted to go to war. The recruitment officer comes in to take away the eldest son, and when the wife argues back he tries to gain authority by belittling the father - normally the ‘head of the family’.

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Over all response to the three stimuli:

From the three stimuli I learnt of the pressure the government put on innocent people due in the war. By participating in this workshop I have come to realise a lot about the hidden truth of war and the depth of pain involved in it. Also I believe I have gained a better understanding of why war is such a big issue to this day.

I was shocked to see how well all the stimuli fitted together, almost like a jigsaw. I had expected each stimulus to motivate a different response to ...

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