Dulce Essay Flashcards
PCQECQE 1
-Owen opens poem with imagery, word choice and repetition.
-Seen in first stanza, as soldiers coming back from battle are described.
-“Bent-double, like old beggars under sacks”
-Just as beggars are in a poor physical condition, so too have the soldiers been weakened by war.
The idea of beggars under sacks = soldiers are ill equipped as sacks feel rough and are used to carry items, not to clothe humans.
-“Bent double” emphasises that the soldiers being in poor health and are so weak that they can no longer stand properly.
-These effective techniques contribute to creating Owen’s strong message, that war should not be glorified, by describing how neglected and poorly cared for the soldiers are.
-Further in stanza 1, Owen further describes poor condition soldiers….
-“All went lame, all blind”
-Lame” connotes weak and limping. “blind” connotes not being able to see… word choice engage the reader by revealing that the soldiers are so badly injured that they have lost the ability to walk properly and that their eyes have been damaged beyond function, by war.
-Additionally, the repetition of “all” emphasises that every single soldier was harmed by the fighting.
-These techniques strengthen Owen’s message, that war is not glorious, by introducing the idea that war is indiscriminately cruel, which is supported by the fact that no soldier escaped unafflicted.
PCQECQE 2
-Owen ……. throughhis skilful use of sentence structure, punctuation and imagery in stanza 2 to describe the panic of the soldiers upon realising that they are under attack by gas, and the pain felt by those who are engulfed by it.
-“Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!”
-This creates a sharp change of pace from the arduous and sluggish rhythm of stanza one, to a quick and frantic pace, in stanza two.
-The repetition of the one-word sentences “gas” reinforces this change in pace through the urgency it conveys. -The writer’s effective use of exclamation marks also serves to reinforce the sense of panic felt by the soldiers by highlighting their terror and dread of the gas.
-A command is implied in “Quick, boys!” because there is not enough time to issue a formal command, as a moment’s hesitation could mean the difference in survival or being consumed by the gas. This conveys the drama of the moment.
-Owen further …….
-“As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.”
-Just as a sea is vast, great and can be hostile, so too is the gas all-consuming and deadly, These metaphors, effectively describe the danger of the gas by telling us how difficult it is to escape the gas as due to its overwhelming expanse.
- “drowning” conveys the pain the soldier feels, as he dies, by telling us that he is flailing around as if he was submerged in water and was unable to breathe and was unable to be helped – an undeniably grim death. -Furthermore, the change from a simile to a metaphor intensifies the image of the soldier suffering as Owen is not saying it is like the man is drowning, but that the man is drowning.
-These techniques strengthen Owen’s message, that war is not glorious, by describing how painfully the soldiers died – as well as how helpless they were upon having breathed the toxic gas. But they also describe the terror felt by those who fought and how unforgiving gas attacks were as one slip could ensure your death, which also strengthens the message that war is not glorious.
PCQECQE 3
-the writer utilises imagery, sentence structure and word choice to…….. in the third stanza, as he describes the guilt and trauma that Owen gained from that incident.
“In all my dreams, before my helpless sight”
- skilful use of personification in “helpless”. This tells us that Owen feels guilty as there is nothing that he can do to help his comrade, instead, he is forced to watch as this unfortunate soldier dies a painful and violent death.
-This guilt continues to haunt Owen to this day as we are told that he relives this nightmare in his dreams and the word choice of “all” makes clear that every single dream he has is infected by this happening, and therefore cannot avoid his guilt.
-Additionally, the word choice of “dreams” tells us that us that not even the usual oblivion of sleep can allow him to escape his guilt - which emphasises how powerful his guilt is.
-Later, in the third stanza, where he explores the awful suffering of the soldier, we can read
“He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.”
-This word choice of “guttering”, “choking” and “drowning”, create a truly harrowing description of the soldiers’ immense pain as he slowly dies, words are painfully graphic.
- words become more and more gory which reflects the increasing amounts of pain the soldier felt as he grew ever closer to his death, which reinforces the idea of his horrible suffering by telling us that his pain was relentless.
-The repetition of the “ing” sound creates an understanding of the complexity of the dying soldiers’ pain, as he died, as he experienced a multitude of violent and painful sensations, which in turn, develops our understanding of how severe his suffering was.
-These techniques create Owens message, that war is not glorious, to be strong by highlighting the severity of Owens trauma from the war, through telling us that it is a trauma that he cannot outrun. These techniques also further develop the variety of agonising sensations felt by the soldier as he was consumed by this new type of weapon – gas – which also reinforces Owen’s message.
