Using Irony To Protest War In 'Dulce Et Decorum Est'

Is fighting in war really as good as everyone says it is? Authors that have fought in war say otherwise. Writers such as Stephen Crane, Wilfred Owen, Tim O’brien, and Kevin Powers have experienced the horrors and real pain of fighting in war. These writers use many of the best techniques to protest war such as imagery, irony, and structure. Writers use imagery to protest war by putting images in the readers head of all the suffering and struggle they experienced. Wilfred Owen, the author of “Dulce et Decorum Est”, uses imagery by stating that “he plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning” (16). By using the quote Owen is creating an image of this man coming at him suffering over and over in his dreams. In the novel The things they Carried by author Tim O’Brien, he uses imagery by saying “they used his pancho to wrap him up, then to carry him across the paddy, then to lift him into the chopper that took him away”. He is creating an image in the readers heads of the men carrying a man away …show more content…
Writers use Irony to protest war by showing the cruelty of war and pointing out the bad things in war which aren’t expected. In Stephen Crane’s Poem “War is Kind” he uses irony in the title and throughout the poem. Crane uses irony by saying the “Little souls who thirst for fight,/These men were born to drill and die”. By saying that these little souls were meant to drill and die contradicts the real meaning that these young men are going into war for. In the poem “ The Yellow Birds” by Kevin Powers, he says “ let’s make it as painless as possible because you are a coward and, really, cowardice got you into this mess because you wanted to be a man”. By using cowardice and man he is using Irony because being a man isn’t be a coward, but being a coward to make you look like a man is showing irony because you don’t expect Powers to use this as an example. Irony is a huge part of creating a poem that protests