In stanza 2 Wilfred Owen uses a simile to describe the gusts of wind ‘watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire, like twitching agonies of men among its brambles’ this reminds the men of the dead or dieing that got court amongst the barbed wire. In these two stanzas there isn’t a lot happening, which was the general reality of WWI because most of the time the soldiers were just waiting for something to happen. Wilfred Owen links war and weather together as though they were both the enemy for example ‘Iced east winds…knive us’ ‘mad gusts…like twitching agonies of men’ and he also uses lots of adjectives to describe and really bring out the sounds and horror of war ‘twitching’ ‘shivering’ ‘shrivelling’.
In stanza 3 Wilfred Owen uses personification to reinforce the idea that the weather is just as much the enemy as the Germans, he compares Dawn to a general ‘dawn massing in the east…’ rain clouds to a melancholy army ‘…her melancholy army attacks once more…’ and shivering ranks of grey to a human army ‘...in ranks on shivering ranks of grey’.
In stanzas 5 and 6 the soldiers start to daydream about home and spring/warmth he uses words such as ‘sun dosed’ ‘sunk fires’ ‘crusted dark red jewels’ and then at the end of stanza 6 reality of the war hits them and suddenly their daydreams are over like they have been rejected and shut out of there own homes ‘on us the doors are closed’
In stanza 7 the soldiers remember why they are out there/reason for fighting ‘since we believe not otherwise kind fires burn; nor ever suns smile true on child…’ they fight to preserve the way of life back home in England for there future children generations. ‘Therefore were born’ they believe they were born to protect their country. This part of the poem seems to show Owen’s patriotism as opposed to anger and bitterness in the other poems.
Stanza 8 is all about them trying to burry the dead soldiers Wilfred Owen uses very vivid words to describe the horrible reality of bury their fellow soldiers and friends ‘half known faces. All their eyes are ice’ this tells us that the dead might have been hard to recognize because their faces may have been half destroyed.
Poem 2 – Anthem for Doomed Youth
Edinburgh’s Craiglockhart Hospital in August 1917 marked a turning point in Owen’s life as a poet. A remarkable writing period was just beginning. In sonnet form, Anthem for Doomed Youth is an elegy, a lament for the dead, and a judgement on Owen’s experience of war rather than an account of the experience itself.
In this poem Wilfred Owen compares funerals back home in England and what the soldiers get when they get killed in battle. This poem can link back to exposure the link is that they both talk about the dead soldiers, this poem points out that when the soldiers where killed in battle there were no funerals, the soldiers were treated like animals, they were only buried when the burying parties could get to them Exposure says that even then it was hard to bury the soldiers in the freezing conditions. In the first line he says ‘what passing-bells for these who die as cattle?’ passing-bells is the term used for the funerals back home which states that they were in churches with the bells ringing and the term ‘who die as cattle’ describes the horror and reality of the soldiers deaths-they are slaughtered like animals. Wilfred Owen describes the horror and reality of the soldier’s funerals by relating back to the ceremonies of funerals taking place back home ‘demented choirs of wailing shells’, This points out that there was no minute silence to mark there deaths all they had was the noise of wailing shells. he uses onomatopoeic words like ‘shuttering’ ‘rattling’ to bring out the violence and horror of battle ‘only the monstrous anger of guns. Only the shuttering rifles’ that was the reality of the ceremony the dead soldiers had.
Poem 3 – Disabled
Drafted in October 1917 and revised at in July the Scarborough following year, Disabled presents a poignant picture of a young soldier "legless, sewn short at elbow", a combination of brutal frankness and tactful circumlocution.
‘Shivered in his ghastly suit of grey’ the suit doesn’t fit him because of his image of a disabled man with no legs nor arms ‘Legless, sewn short at the elbow’ describes the horror and reality that this man has had to deal with. Wilfred Owen describes the horror and reality of how this man got his devastating injuries ‘he’s lost his colour…’ colour meaning blood ‘…poured it down shell holes until veins ran dry…’ this suggests that the man was shot/blown in a crater and left to bleed to death until someone rescued him.
Poem 4 – Dulce et Decorum est
In October 1917 Wilfred Owen wrote to his mother from Craiglockhart, ‘Here is a gas poem, done yesterday…the famous Latin tag ‘from Horace, Odes’ means of course it is sweet and meet to die for one’s country. Sweet and decorous’
Stanza 1 sets the scene. The soldiers are limping back from the Front line; Wilfred Owen expresses horror and reality through simile and metaphor. Such is the men’s wretched condition that they can be compared to old beggars, hags (ugly old women). Yet they were young Barely awake from lack of sleep, their once smart uniforms resembling sacks, they cannot walk straight as their blood-caked feet try to negotiate the mud. ‘Blood-shod’ seems a dehumanising image- we think of horses shod not men.
In Stanza 2 Wilfred Owen presents the horror and reality of war by focusing on one man who couldn’t get his gas helmet on in time. Lines 12-14 consist of a powerful underwater metaphor; with poison gas being compared to a sea ‘as under a green sea’ he had to watch him drown. ‘Floundering’ is what they’re already doing (in the mud) but here it takes on more gruesome implications as Owen introduces himself into the action through witnessing his comrade dying in agony and he can do nothing about it. In this stanza he used lots of adjectives ‘yelling’ ‘stumbling’ ‘floundering’ to make the scene more energetic and violent. Stanza 3 was the aftermaths of the gas attack, the horror is that Wilfred Owen had to watch one of his friends die ‘plunges at me’ before ‘my helpless sight’, an image Owen will not forget.
In Stanza 4 Owen attacks those people at home who promote war and unaware of what really happened. If only they might experience Owen’s own ‘smothering dreams’. Wilfred Owen describes the dieing man in gruesome detail to present the horror and reality of war ‘we flung him in’ suggests that the man was desperate and struggling ‘white eyes writhing in his face…the blood come gargling from the froth corrupted lungs’ like the was drowning.
The poem that made the biggest impression on me was Dulce because it was the most disturbing poem of the 4. I think that Owen has expressed the horror and reality very well by using his personal experiences.