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Attitudes To The War in 'Who's For The Game?' and 'Dulce Et Decorum Est'

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‘Who’s for the Game?’ and ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’

Q: Compare the attitudes to the war and its presentation in the 2 poems ‘Who’s For The Game?’ and ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’. Include an analysis of the language used and its structure.

In the two poems ‘Who’s For the Game?’ and ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’, there are many fundamental differences which set the two poems in two different places in a reader’s mind – the way they interpret the poem. I will be explaining how these essential differences make the reader ponder in different ways.

The first difference is that both poems were written by the opposite gender, which to me is a fundamental difference because it shows how they think about the war – ‘Who’s For the Game?’ was written by …show more content…

These three ideas are portrayed throughout the poem and Jessie Pope uses cunning to show them off as if the war is like a chess game – the poem uses strong euphemism and undermines the war in its full extent (including all the fighting, death and torture). However the second poem completely contrasts Jessie Pope’s poem except with the title. Like Jessie, Wilfred Owen used ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ as a rhetorical phrase – the title when translated from Latin, it suggests the glamour and nobility of war. However Owen completely contrasts the idea of this phrase throughout the poem. Wilfred Owen is an eye-witness and this poem was written as a beacon to show people how the war actually was through his eyes – Wilfred was a soldier in the war and had died fighting, but wrote this poem during his time recovering from his injuries. All the cruelness and disgust in the war was poured out into the poem, harking heavily on the propaganda poems. Wilfred uses his poem to show people the real cruelty of the war and shows how the war is not a chess game, but is a real concern that is costing millions of lives to be destroyed.
The way the two poems have been written could not be anymore different and really help portray the meaning behind it all.

Firstly in ‘Who’s For the Game?’ Jessie Pope uses rhyming sentences in couplets:

Who’s for the game, the biggest that’s played
The red crashing game of a fight?
Who’ll grip and tackle the job unafraid?
And who thinks

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