World War One was the first of its kind, men used toxic gasses as weapons, there were tanks, airplanes, and other technological advances. The mass development of war also means there are more ways to kill the enemy. Isaac Rosenberg’s “Break of Day in the Trenches” and Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” are both poems that depict World War One as hellish and evil in nature, as soldiers, they are surrounded by death. Both poets represent death in an ironic way, because war is considered hellish and gruesome, people die, and Owen shows the irony between the romanticized war while Rosenberg shows irony through the freedom of a rat; the two poets alludes to death in devices such as imagery. “Break of Day in the Trenches” and “Dulce et Decorum Est” stand in for death because they use war as a paradox. They expect their readers, like many writers do, to take things lightly such as war. War is often romanticized and taken with a grain of salt, both Owen and Rosenberg uses that to their advantage, when both the authors hit their readers with a dose of reality it tends to make it ironic because readers expect one thing but received something else. For instance, in Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum” plays on how war is often romanticized versus the reality of war that has millions of men dying, which makes the poem ironic.
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The title alone is ironic because its translation is it’s sweet to die for one’s country, yet Owen says, “watch the white eyes writhing in his face,/His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin” (19-20). There is nothing romantic about death nor a, “hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin” (20), how Owen describes the men and the dead soldier is nightmarish. Owen’s also states, “the blood/Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs” (21-22) which is also a nightmarish description that is ironic to the poem because this is nothing sweet or something someone should be proud of. The poem list many horrific scenes that he’s witness but as the title of the poem indicates that they should be proud to die, no matter how gruesome, because they are dying and fighting for their country. The readers’ are the ones who romanticize war and when they read that they can visualize how terrible war is. Whereas for, Rosenberg’s “Break of Day in the Trenches”, he uses envy as a way to compare the lives of a lowly rat that is free versus the trapped men of war, whose death is nearly predictable. In this poem death is also represented through irony because out of everyone who is dying in battle and in the trenches there is a “Droll rat” (7), who manages to stay alive and does not have to fight for its life, rather than outside of war rats are the ones struggling to stay alive. Rosenberg says: Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew Your cosmopolitan sympathies. Now you have touched this English hand You will do the same to a German (7-10). This is ironic because he is envying the rat who can come and go between the enemy lines, Germany and England, the rat is free. Rats are suppose to represent a lowly creature, a bottom feeder, and
The title alone is ironic because its translation is it’s sweet to die for one’s country, yet Owen says, “watch the white eyes writhing in his face,/His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin” (19-20). There is nothing romantic about death nor a, “hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin” (20), how Owen describes the men and the dead soldier is nightmarish. Owen’s also states, “the blood/Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs” (21-22) which is also a nightmarish description that is ironic to the poem because this is nothing sweet or something someone should be proud of. The poem list many horrific scenes that he’s witness but as the title of the poem indicates that they should be proud to die, no matter how gruesome, because they are dying and fighting for their country. The readers’ are the ones who romanticize war and when they read that they can visualize how terrible war is. Whereas for, Rosenberg’s “Break of Day in the Trenches”, he uses envy as a way to compare the lives of a lowly rat that is free versus the trapped men of war, whose death is nearly predictable. In this poem death is also represented through irony because out of everyone who is dying in battle and in the trenches there is a “Droll rat” (7), who manages to stay alive and does not have to fight for its life, rather than outside of war rats are the ones struggling to stay alive. Rosenberg says: Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew Your cosmopolitan sympathies. Now you have touched this English hand You will do the same to a German (7-10). This is ironic because he is envying the rat who can come and go between the enemy lines, Germany and England, the rat is free. Rats are suppose to represent a lowly creature, a bottom feeder, and