World War I was one of the biggest and deadliest wars in history. A lot of lives were lost and it was an emotional time. With this emotion, came beautiful art in many forms including poetry. There were many poets inspired by World War I, three of them being, Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, and John McCrae. All three served and died during the war but they left behind poems that will never be forgotten. Wilfred Owen wrote, “Dulce et Decorum Est,” in 1917; Isaac Rosenberg wrote, “Break of Day in the Trenches,” in 1916; and John McCrae wrote, “In Flanders Fields”, in 1915. These poems all illustrate the different views of war each poet held. Owen and Rosenberg have similar views on war while McCrae’s view differs. “Dulce et Decorum Est” is a famous
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First, the many similes give us an idea of just how awful the conditions are. Starting with, “Bent double, like old beggars.” This simile describes how the soldiers are deprived to the point that their health and dignity can be compared to elderly people that beg for a living. He then uses the comparison, “coughing like hags.” This shows the loss of their youth and masculinity as they are compared to old, ugly women. As the poem continues, and one of the speaker’s fellow soldiers must endure the gas, a picture is painted in our head from the simile, “floundering like a man in fire or lime.” The reader is given a clear image of how painful this is from the comparison of a man in fire. Two lines later, another image is painted in our heads, this time an image of the man drowning in the gas, “As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.” Finally, an imagine of the man’s state from the gas is drawn through three similes linked together, “His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; if you could hear, at every jolt, the blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues.” These three similes give us an idea of just how bad the man’s condition is as his state is compared to a devil, cancer, and the cud of vile. These similes were used to present us with a horrid picture of war, which in the end is intended to change our view …show more content…
Symbolism is seen through the use of the poppies and the rat. The poppies are a symbol of the fallen soldiers during World War I. The rat is another important symbol that represents freedom. The rat is also personified in this poem when it is said to grin as it passes the dead bodies. Irony is another device that is used at the end of the poem when the soldier claims the poppy is safe but he plunked him from the ground so the poppy is dead. The last literary device is a metaphor that says, “Sprawled in the bowels of the earth, the torn fields of France.” The soldier’s bodies are metaphorically described as lying in the earth’s guts and it continues with an image of Frances fields that have been destroyed by the war. These images give us a picture of how violent and ugly the war was and how there was no such thing of freedom or safety until you were no longer
First, the many similes give us an idea of just how awful the conditions are. Starting with, “Bent double, like old beggars.” This simile describes how the soldiers are deprived to the point that their health and dignity can be compared to elderly people that beg for a living. He then uses the comparison, “coughing like hags.” This shows the loss of their youth and masculinity as they are compared to old, ugly women. As the poem continues, and one of the speaker’s fellow soldiers must endure the gas, a picture is painted in our head from the simile, “floundering like a man in fire or lime.” The reader is given a clear image of how painful this is from the comparison of a man in fire. Two lines later, another image is painted in our heads, this time an image of the man drowning in the gas, “As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.” Finally, an imagine of the man’s state from the gas is drawn through three similes linked together, “His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; if you could hear, at every jolt, the blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues.” These three similes give us an idea of just how bad the man’s condition is as his state is compared to a devil, cancer, and the cud of vile. These similes were used to present us with a horrid picture of war, which in the end is intended to change our view …show more content…
Symbolism is seen through the use of the poppies and the rat. The poppies are a symbol of the fallen soldiers during World War I. The rat is another important symbol that represents freedom. The rat is also personified in this poem when it is said to grin as it passes the dead bodies. Irony is another device that is used at the end of the poem when the soldier claims the poppy is safe but he plunked him from the ground so the poppy is dead. The last literary device is a metaphor that says, “Sprawled in the bowels of the earth, the torn fields of France.” The soldier’s bodies are metaphorically described as lying in the earth’s guts and it continues with an image of Frances fields that have been destroyed by the war. These images give us a picture of how violent and ugly the war was and how there was no such thing of freedom or safety until you were no longer