Comparison - Dulce et Decorum Est and Mametz Wood Flashcards
What are the things similar about Dulce et Decorum Est and Manhunt?
- show the negative impacts of war
- present awful legacy of war
- accusatory attitude towards others
What are the quotes supporting the negative impacts of war in Dulce et Decorum Est and Mametz Wood?
Dulce:
•‘guttering, choking, drowning’ - Asyndentic listing – powerful verbs suggesting futile struggle. Graphically shows the soldier drowning in fluid of his lungs. Shocks and angers the reader
•‘the white eyes writhing’ - w sounds make it seem like someone is trying to speak but unable to and watch is an imperative verb that makes it seem like the death is happening in front of our faces
•‘The blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs’ - recreates the sounds of the man dying and the froth coming from his lips and the c of the corrupted sounds like the start of a cough
•‘bitter as the cud’ - harsh sounding sibilance
Mametz Wood:
•‘blown and broken bird’s egg of a skull’ - Plosive alliteration – mimics the sound of gunfire and explosions on battlefield. Zoomorphism associates a sense of delicacy with the soldiers – some only boys.
•‘socketed heads tilted back’ - Gives imagery of their heads when they are shot with bullets with a simple work such as tilted. It shows it was a normal thing to them. The word socketed shows that the bullets fit into them perfectly as if they were meant to die.
•‘their jaws, those that have them, dropped open’ - embedded clause emphasises the devastation of war and the imagery shows how brutal and wasteful war was
How are the negative impacts of war similar in Dulce et Decorum Est and Mametz Wood?
Both poems portray war as something which wreaks terrible physical destruction upon the bodies of soldiers. Both poets use graphic imagery to display a disdainful attitude towards the horror of war.
How is the awful legacy of war similar in Dulce et Decorum Est and Mametz Wood?
Both poets present the awful legacy of war and the psychological impact it has either upon survivors, such as Owen himself, or those who lived decades later, such as Sheers.
What are the quotes supporting the awful legacy of war in Dulce et Decorum Est and Mametz Wood?
Dulce:
- ‘Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the roots’ - decline in mental state and giving in as if already ready for death
- ‘If in some smothering Sheer dreams, you too could pace’ - repetition of the face shows his anger and it builds up in pitch and the sibilance becomes angrier by using one-syllable words
- ‘His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin’ - You shows the anger toward the reader and the sibilance slows down the time and we live the nightmare the poet has
- ‘In all my dreams before my helpless sight’ - wants to put the reader in the position he is in and feel the anger from the harsh sounds of guttering, choking and drowning - death appears in ALL his dreams as if it’s Owen’s fault
Mametz Wood:
- ‘For years afterwards the farmers found them’ - for years after shows that the impact of war is long-lasting and found them shows that the soldiers are passive and them shows that they are anonymous as they don’t have a specific identity any longer (made soldiers powerless)
- ‘This morning, twenty men buried in one long grave’ - the adverbial phrase his morning shows the effect of war is still being felt today
- ‘in boots that outlasted them’ - repetition of t,k,b,d,g sounds mimic the sounds of the machine-gun fire cause the heads of the soldiers to be titled back war is so powerful it forces its way into poetry
- ‘have only now, with this unearthing’ - unearthing shows that we need to acknowledge the atrocities of war to move on from them
- ‘slipped from their absent tongues’ - absent and slipped shows that the soldiers and passive and powerless again
How is the accusatory attitude towards others similar in Dulce et Decorum Est and Mametz Wood?
In both poems, there exists an accusatory attitude towards others; either towards those that commanded the war effort, such as in Sheers’s poem, or those the spread propaganda and made it seem glorious, as seen in Owen’s poem.
What are the quotes supporting the accusatory attitude towards others in Dulce et Decorum Est and Mametz Wood?
Dulce:
•‘My friend, you would not tell with such high st To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie’ - used to show irony when he calls us “our friend” we think is it our fault for celebration as all these young men die “high zest” is the opposite to the description of the children and children shows that these people are no more than boys and “some” shows that the desperate glory is illusionary and these boys are desperate to grow up and we tell them a big lie. The next line shows that the lie is in the capital as it is going on for ages and “old” shows that the old don’t have to die but the old are sending the young to die. The Latin word shows that they died for nothing just as the Romans did not gain anything from all these empires
Mametz Wood:
•‘across this field where they were told to walk, not run’ - tone is critical and seems like he is mocking them - to the people in charge of the 38th division due to poor leadership that had caused many deaths
•‘And even now the earth stands sentinel’ - sentinel is a type of guard whose jobs it is to stand and keep watch = shows the Earth is protecting the soldiers but is fairly inactive as it won’t fight alongside
•‘the wasted young, turning up under their plough blade’ - wasted shows a critical tone towards war
What is the conclusion about Dulce et Decorum Est and Mametz Wood?
- In both Dulce and Mametz Wood, the theme of war is not only presented as a force that wreaks terrible physical destruction on the bodies of the soldiers but upon their minds too; it leaves them mentally scarred and haunted by the things they have seen. Despite a gap of nearly a century between them, both Owen and Sheers display a bitter and accusatory attitude towards those with authority in governing the direction of the war (such as the generals) and, in Owen’s case, those that would spread deceptive propaganda about war’s apparent gloriousness.
