Dulce et Decorum Est

Both the authors, William Golding and William Shakespeare highlight severe human weakness in the novel Lord of the Flies and the play Macbeth respectively. This was deliberately done in response to their profound yet interesting lives that they had experienced as a human. This is evident as; Lord of the Flies was portrayed as an allegorical microcosm of the world Golding was involved in, which included real-life violence and brutality of the World War II. Perhaps, it was intended by the author…

“One does not use poetry for its major purposes, as a means to organize oneself and the world, until one’s world somehow gets out of hand.” This was Richard Wilbur’s response when someone asked him about fighting in World War II and how it changed him. Richard Wilbur is a famous modern day poet who won two Pulitzer Prizes for two of his collections of poems. He was the second poet laureate of the United States. Richard Wilbur fought as a combat soldier in World War II which changed his outlook…

Throughout Storm of Steel, his memoir recollecting his experiences during World War I, Ernst Jünger employs the use of simplistic language to express the immediacy of the war. Instead of using a more stylistic and grandiose approach to his writing, the former soldier conveys his feelings through short and plain-spoken statements. Jünger’s style reflects the aloof mindset that fighting in war can produce. Jünger keeps his sentences simple and short. Grammatically, these sentences are proper…

The implications of Yeats’ inner perspective on World War I resonates with an air of prophecy regarding the negative undertones of future humankind on both a local and universal scale. The ramifications of conflict emerge as concepts in poems such as An Irish Airman Foresees His Death, which examines destiny and the meaning of giving our life to a greater cause. Furthermore, The Second Coming highlights Yeats’s opinion on the apocalyptic cycle of nature while The Wild Swans at Coole delves into…

Ian McEwan’s Atonement explores the highly enthralling themes of war and the subsequent horrors, corruption, and the power of language and story-telling, a theme prevalent internationally or otherwise in every piece of literature. McEwan utilises and vast plethora of techniques and literary conventions in order to allow a deeper insight into these predominant themes. McEwan uses techniques including imagery and pathos to powerfully illustrate his Realist view of war. Within part II and III,…

War has proven over a series of time that it destroys the human mind. It turns family against family, brother against brother, leaving a lasting affect on the human psych. Using literary elements, authors have a way of describing war through their writing. Liam O’Flaherty and Thomas Hardy are two examples of this. Liam O’Flaherty’s short story, “The Sniper”, and Thomas Hardy’s poem, “The Man He Killed”, contain a plot, irony, and theme to describe their thoughts on war, and can be used to state…

Confederate general, Robert E. Lee, in his letter, narrates his anguished thoughts pertaining to the conflicts between the North and South. Lee’s main objective is to express his extreme grief when seeing the Union in its current state of unease as well as to voice the plight of secession and ultimately civil war. He employs the uses of several rhetorical strategies including: doleful diction, hyperboles, and historical remembrance to efficaciously illustrate his feelings of melancholy towards…

Heller's novel Catch-22 established its reputation in the literary domain and distinguished itself from among war fictions as one of the most satirical and unflattering novels emerged from the ashes of war. Unlike many laudatory and rhapsodically novels which sing the praises of war, Heller's novel comes as a powerful deconstruction and bitter critique of the romantic sentiment of the American dream, in a way which probes deep into the hopes and aspirations of a tortured individual amid a…

”War is kind” is poem written by Stephen Crane and is about war and its aftermath. Stephen Crane perfectly summarizes war and those affected directly and indirectly in five stanza’s, the message of the poem is directed more towards the loved ones of the soldiers who died on the battlefield. Stephen Crane used blank verse poetry and is well suited for the subject of war because it doesn’t have the harmonious patterns of rhyme or rhythm. The second and fourth stanzas characterize a change in the…

The Terrible Beauty of the Forgotten War In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien’s, use of words to describe his memories of the Vietnam war transform the stories in his novel. O’Brien is able to take images of disturbing horror and turns them into a romanticized vision, that the reader can understand. Because this is a war story, it’s obvious there will be horrible images that O’Brien and his platoon had to experience, but he able to transforms them into beautiful narratives. Throughout the…