Seth Inman
Mr Cohen
ENG2D
3rd December
It is known that WW1 was a very violent and brutal place; there was a lot of propaganda that tricked men into going to war. Both of these authors are clearly making these poems as a protest towards propaganda. They both use similar methods to represent what the war was really like for these men at the time. Dulce et Decorum est used multiple methods to help visualize what was happening to men in the trenches throughout WW1. Suicide in the trenches told a story of a boy who killed himself in the trenches, combined with Sassoon’s writing methods it created a very memorable and tragic representation of WW1. Dulce et Decorum est and Suicide In the Trenches were very clearly inspired by each other; they both used similar writing methods throughout for similar purposes.
Wilfred Owen had a very clear way of creating a brutal, violent, and sad visual of WW1 in the reader’s mind through his use of structure and language features. When the reader hears about someone “guttering, choking, drowning.”(Owen, 2008, 2) they picture someone in pain that is hanging on by a thread of life: this paints a very tragic image in their mind. An end-stopped line is also used here, this end-stopped line resembles that it is the end of this man’s life, almost like a metaphor. “Guttering” is a word that is not used very often but paints an excellent image. “Guttering” sounds like it’s the next level of choking where you’re barely able to breathe, the reader can picture the condition the man is in and how much pain he must be in. The word could also be considered an onomatopoeia since the sound “gu” part of “guttering” sounds like gagging or what “guttering” would be like. When Owen sees him “under a green sea...drowning”(Owen, 2008, 2) he doesn’t actually see him “under a green sea” because it’s a metaphor. This metaphor paints a picture of a man slowly drifting away into a slow, painful death, this is a very accurate representation of what happened to thousands if not millions of men throughout the war. At the time there were a lot of men who had to march through trenches for days on end and were constantly attacked, Owen making this into a poem helped grab people's attention at the time.
The governments were trying to make the war sound like a fun adventure to go on, Suicide in the Trenches represents what it was truly like in the war. Suicide in the Trenches uses multiple methods to represent that the war truly was a terrible place where innocent people would kill themselves before they even started fighting. When Sassoon says “you smug-faced crowds with kindling eye” (Sassoon, 2008, 15) he is using a direct address. This grabs the reader’s attention and tells them that what they are doing is wrong, and the war is nothing like how it is being portrayed to them. He also uses an end-stopped line when he states that “No one spoke of him again.” (Sassoon, 2008, 15) This end-stopped line not only ends the stanza but represents that this was the end of this boy’s life and he was totally forgotten, this was the truth for a lot of men during this war, forgotten, never to be talked about again. When the reader imagines someone sleeping in the “lonesome dark” (Sassoon, 2008, 15) they picture a place where the soldier is all alone and scared. The word “lonesome” provokes this thought in the reader’s mind, many soldiers were away from their home feeling lonely and homesick at the time. Sassoon also uses rhyming couplets, he could’ve used these for many reasons. The rhythm that it provides helps make the poem memorable so people remember what the war is actually like. It also creates a happy tone which contradicts what is happening throughout the poem. Furthermore, this happy tone seems to almost mimic all of the positive propaganda about the war, this only makes it seem more tragic. At the time, many soldiers were struggling in the trenches wanting to end their lives, Suicide in the trenches helps bring this topic to light.
Both poems clearly get the point across that war isn’t as glorious as it’s made out to be. They both use rhyming and similar language features/imagery to visualize what the war was really like. Throughout the poem, it was very clear that they were inspired by each other. One example of this is at the end of the second stanza: Owen says “guttering, choking, drowning.”(Owen, 2008, 11) and Sassoon says “no one spoke of him again.”(Sassoon, 2008, 13). Both of these sentences are at the end of the second stanza and use an end-stopped line. This end-stopped line is used for the same reason in each poem, the end of a man’s life. In Suicide In the trenches the boy had just shot himself in the head, whereas in Dulce et Decorum Est the man had just died because of all of the mustard gas. Furthermore, each of their third stanzas seem to serve an overall similar purpose as they both use direct address to convey their point. This direct address is used to accuse the reader of doing something wrong. In Suicide in the Trenches Sassoon accuses the reader of cheering on all of the soldiers as if they’re heroes whereas in Dulce Et Decorum Est Owen tells the reader that if they think the war is such a glorious place they should go out and try it for themself. This was largely how the war was represented to many at this time.
In conclusion, it is clear that both poems were able to create a brutal but clear visual of what WW1 was like for soldiers through the authors’ many writing conventions. Both Owen’s and Sassoon’s third stanzas were clearly made to protest the propaganda. They were used to convince all of the families of soldiers that the place their sons, husbands, and fathers went to fight wasn’t what the government made it out to be. WW1 was a very tough time for many soldiers as they weren’t allowed to talk about what the war had been like for them. These poems were clearly made to stand up for the soldiers in the war and inform the world that, in reality, the war was a brutal, violent place.
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