war is a distressing and harrowing experience

8/3/2019 War is a Distressing and Harrowing Experience

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08/02/2010 Bibi Visser

War is a distressing and harrowing experience. How do you thinkthe poems that you have studied communicate this effectively to

the reader?

The poems that we have studied are very different even though they

all focus on war. Dulce et Decorum Est.was written during the First

World War by Wilfred Owen who fought in the trenches basing his

poem on his own experiences. However, Six Young Menwas written

by Ted Hughes who wrote it 40 years after the war finished and based

it on a photograph of six young men taken a short time before they

joined a pals regiment. He researched the six young men in the

photograph, who fought during the war, to find out what happened to

them. I feel that both poets communicate the horrors of war effectively

but in very different ways.

In the poem Dulce et Decorum est.Owen strongly focuses on irony

and the harshness of war. This is shown in the end of the poem as the

poet repeats the title and finishes off with Pro Patria Mori. This rounds

off the irony of the poem as it rebels against the propaganda by saying

that it is sweet and honourable to die for your country, even thoughthe poem clearly contradicts those statements. Showing that death in

war is painful as well as a complete waste of life, Owen was also

rebelling against patriotic propaganda and the poems of Jessie Pope

who urged young men to enlist in her poem The Call.

In the poem Six Young Men, Hughes shows us how life can be cut

short by war and reminds us that we are all going to die one day, but

for these poor men who fought in the war, it would be much sooner

that they deserved. In the poem Hughes creates a familiarization

between the reader and the soldiers and makes them seem as

everyday people informing us of personal details such as, One was

ridiculous with cocky pride which makes the reader recognize


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themselves as well as revealing their youth and inexperience.

Furthermore, he tells us about the men in the photograph on an outing

making them seem like ordinary teenagers.

Furthermore, Ted Hughes allows us to be drawn into the lives of the six

young men but ends every verse with their deaths. For example,

Hughes states cocky pride-that one man had but Six months after

this picture they were all dead. This reinforces the suddenness of their

premature deaths. The simple language creates a strong statement

implying that we are all going to die one day, that everything ends in

death and we dont know when it will happen. This message is further

highlighted as the poet ends every single verse with a similar line such

as Forty years rotting in the ground not only, further reminding us of

their deaths but the use of the word rotting suggests that their lives

have been wasted or just thrown away like rubbish.

In a different way to show the agony of death, Owen uses the words

guttering, choking, and drowning to help us see how painful the death

of a soldier was and to focus in on their excruciating suffering during

the gas attacks on their trenches. By using these harsh consonance

sounds he makes us visualize the gas on which the soldiers are

choking and is slowly eating away at them inside and how painful and

disgusting it must have been.

Moreover, Owen also uses aposiopesis at the end of a line as if he cant

carry on because the memories are too painful for him to continue

writing. Like a man in fire or lime is an example of this and it shows

how the poet could be having a flashback about the event being

described or that he is regretting that he was completely powerless in

the situation and wasnt able to save the man who was so desperately

calling out for help.


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In this poem the appearance of the men at the start is also very

effective as it shows how injured and exhausted they already were

before the gas attack. But limped on, blood-shod. He uses this

metaphor to make us imagine the mens feet shod with blood because

they have been walking barefoot and injured through the execrable

trenches. Moreover, the word shod is usually associated with horses

who have nails driven into their hooves suggesting that the mens feet

are torn and badly wounded.

On the other hand, the poems do have something in common, besides

being about war; they both focus on the frailty of our lives. The poem

Dulce et Decorum est.shows how vulnerable soldiers were in WW1 to

a gas attack. For example, the soldier who has been affected by a gas

attack in the poem suffers from it almost instantly but doesnt die

instantly; instead he suffers a long and agonizing death and Owen

cant do anything about it, before my helpless sight. However, in the

poem Six Young Menit shows how vulnerable all people are and how

quick and easily a life can be ended. This is shown when the poet tells

us the different ways three of the men died. He says that one died

From potting at tin-cans in no mans land, which is a simple and

absurd way to die as it was due to a careless moment shooting at cans

with his rifle and the next being shot right between the eyes.

Overall, both poems are shocking in their intense imagery used to

convey war as a distressing and harrowing experience. They both

convey the massage in different ways but both are powerful and

emotionally disturbing. Both poems created a strong sympathy for the

soldiers. They moved me in a way that it made me realize how

abruptly a persons life can end and in such a horrifying manner.


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I preferred the poem Dulce et Decorum est.because it focused more

on the harsh reality of war. Also, it had stronger imagery as it stated

ways in which the death made you feel physically sick. It made me

realize how horrible WW1 was. Six Young Menwasnt as powerful to

me because it didnt create the horror of war so vividly but focused on

mans mortality which is something we know about anyway. Even

though I thought it was a good poem I was personally less moved by

this thought than by the vivid detail of the soldiers suffering in Dulce

Et Decorum Est.

war is a distressing and harrowing experience

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