Brooke Shields

My Aid in Life January 6th , 2011 felt like the end but it was a new beginning. This was the day that my parents divorced, and my mother and myself took a flight to Orlando, Florida, from Boston. The previous months were filled of heartbreak, addiction, sorrow, and secrets. Truly, I find it amazing how things can change so fast in just a short amount of time. The things I went through at that time were almost unbearable; but I can deeply thank Alex, my counselor, for all the motivation and…

The Oxford English Dictionary defines romance as “A quality or feeling of mystery, excitement, and remoteness from everyday life” Romance is the element behind horror films and videogames like Call of Duty. Yet it also is behind patriotism. It can drive people to fight for what is theirs and what they are a part of. Kantorek was key in getting Paul and the gang to enlist. His motivating speeches about patriotism, duty, and devotion sparked a romance inside of them. However, fighting didn’t end…

The writings “How to Tell a True War Story”, “Dulce et Decorum est”, and “The Charge of the Light Brigade” offer contrasting portraits of war. The contrasts between “How to Tell a True War Story”, “Dulce et Decorum est”, and “The Charge of the Light Brigade” can clearly be outlined through their acknowledgement of the most prevalent, unavoidable element of war, death. “How to Tell a True War Story” by Tim O’Brien, address death as a matter of fact, consequence of war. Though, O’Brien is…

Beach Burial written by Australian poet Kenneth Slessor is a harrowing elegy which mourns the vast destruction of war. Grasping a thorough understanding of the historical context of the poem is imperative in order to recognize the purpose and impact of the poem. The poem demonstrates a powerful critique of the nature of war through the exploration of ideas such as the anonymity of soldier’s deaths and how it is death that delivers soldier’s from the horrors of war. The success of the poem can be…

We’re All Australian Now by Banjo Patterson discusses how Australia united after rallying against a common enemy during war and was written to encourage Australians fighting abroad during World War One in 1915. The theme of this poem is to show the pride that Australians felt during WWI while they were proving that they were an individual country that could fight for themselves. This poem also shows how Australia united as a country instead of being just separate states that had their own…

The panels that presented on Czeslaw Milosz’s poetry and my own analysis of “A Song for the End of the World” helped shape my understanding of the importance irony and Milosz’s desire to depict the atrocities felt by the Polish during World War II have in his work. Milosz was a Polish poet who lived through World War II. The impact of the war is seen throughout all of his poetry. In the poem “Incantation” Milosz uses images commonly associated with World War II and the Holocaust, such as “bars”…

During the infamous World War 1, there was around 16 million deaths and 21 million wounded, which sums up to 37 million casualties. The total number of deaths includes 10 million military personnel and 6 million civilians. Many people who enlisted in the war thought it would be a noble thing to do, but as it turns out the war ended up being a messy and bloody war. In Wilfred Owen’s poem, “Dulce Et Decorum Est”, he develops the theme of war and the horrors that it offers through his imagery and…

In the Modern era, many writers wrote about the many futile tasks they had to perform. A futile task would be any purposeless one. One of the many themes that occurred in a lot of writers’ poems is futility, which could be a person, behavior, or a task. The people in the Modern era were so focused on this theme of futility because everyday lives were changing rapidly. One work that exemplifies this really well is “S.I.W” by Wilfred Owen. His poetry describes the grotesque reality of the…

Owen’s exploration of extraordinary human experiences is vividly exhibited in ‘Dulce et Decorum’ and ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’. These two highly developed poems successfully prove that the most influential texts are those which have an intense focus on extraordinary human experiences. By being able to immerse the audience in striking imagery, Owen questions the value of war, whilst scrutinising the suffering on the battlefield in an aggravated manner. The experiences of war for…

The poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” is written by Wilfred Owen, a lieutenant in WWI. It describes war and the death. This poem makes use of an ABAB rhyme scheme, sounding like a march with a steady beat. Owen tries to convey the differences and disconnect between what war is like to the soldiers and what civilians believe war is like. Throughout the poem, there is a constant reminder of the horror of war and its true brutal nature, Owen “captures so compellingly not only the tribulations of the…