Deus Caritas Est

YEAR 12 ENGLISH “UNIVERSAL THEMES” - REPRESENTATIONS OF WAR: PLANNING Poem Chosen: Anthem for Doomed Youth Write a paragraph summarising the representation of war being presented in your poem and the main ways in which it is shown. The poem represents war as depressing and futile. The representation of how horrific war is, can be construed from the title itself. It conveys a strong feeling for the reader and foreshadows what the poem will consist of. Usually an anthem is a stirring song…

Inspired by the events of the 1991 Gulf War, Gillian Clarke’s Lament effectively describes the impacts of war on the surrounding environment and wildlife. Although written specifically about the Gulf War, the message of the poem can be applied to the present day - using only words, Clarke paints a vivid picture of the effect of humanity’s behaviour on nature and its inhabitants. Similarly, Boey Kim Cheng’s Report to Wordsworth illustrates the extent of the damage done to the environment. Written…

The Shootout By: Adam Lee “Come on!” I said sarcastically, as I plopped down in my chair off in the sidelines. It was all tied up, 0-0, the 2014 World Cup was going into a shootout. The sweat was pouring down my scorched, red face. I was nervous out of my mind. One team was going to win and one team was going to lose. I was either going to go home with pride for my country, or disappointment in myself. We began to line up at the halfline and start the shootout. The stadium we were in was big,…

Both Wilfred Owen and Seamus Heaney present the power of nature in their poems “Exposure” and “Storm on the Island”, respectively, as overwhelming and uncontrollable. Between the two, they both emphasize nature as an unparalleled power, however, Owen’s poem is a visual representation of life in the trenches of WW1, contrasting from existing government propaganda glamorising the adventures of war and emphasizing the futility of the situation by depicting the fate of soldiers suffering from…

Melville viewed the Civil War as a bloody battle between brothers. His poetry shows the true side to the Civil War, without all of the grandeur and pageantry that other authors have used to describe battles. I believe that his feelings on the war were that it was, like every war, an old mans war that was fought by young men. This can easily be seen in his poem The March into Virginia. Melville wrote, “Youth must its ignorant impulse lend- Age finds place in the rear. All wars are boyish, and…

Steinbeck’s rhetorical style in the Grapes of Wrath conveys his values by using oxymorons and parallelism to add dramatic detail and also to add a sense of amazement to the story in order to draw the reader deeper into the story. Steinbeck uses his own sense of style to add an artistic effect all throughout chapter 25, this style added so much to the story, on the lines of showing the reader how the people had felt through the entirety of the story. Steinbeck’s rhetorical style showed the sorrow…

Emily Dickinson’s poem “To Fight aloud is very brave” is structured in three stanzas with four lines in each. The first stanza of the poem is rhythmic, but then the flow abruptly stops in the last two stanzas. The poem’s main focal point is about the effects war has on those who have fought in them. In addition to Dickinson’s main topic, her poem seems to have some patriotic elements, but there’s also an underlying sense of sorrow and grief. Despite the poems we have read in class that glorify…

Until today, WAR... creates mistakes. Life in The Great War (WW1) World War One was the first war that involved nations from around the world. Life in the Trench was tragic. Most of the action took place in the trenches. Soldiers spent an average period of eight days in trenches, where they are consistently under threat of attack from shellfire, snipers and diseases. Majority of soldiers experienced Trench Fever. Trench foot was another medical condition that appeared due to the…

Why does Edmund Blunden imbue his memoir Undertones of War with irony? To understand the intent and extent of his stylistic choices, one has to understand the context of the work. Written following his experiences as a soldier during the First World War, Undertones of War was written as a recollection of Edmund Blunden’s personal experiences as a soldier. As a memoir, Blunden projects his own feelings and opinions into his writing, detailing both the emotions he felt in the moment of his…

The poem that I have studied is ''Dulce Et Decorum Est'' by Wilfred Owen. The poet is trying to depict the reality. of war through this poem. The poem begins with a description of a group of soldiers retreating from the front lines of the battlefield. They are exhausted and are,''Bent double like old beggars under sacks ''. The poet used a simile to convey the ragged wretched state of the soldiers. They are''Coughing like hags''. The once clean, strong, handsome, young men are being compared to…