Critical Analysis Of The Wound Dresser By Walt Whitman

When telling a story, other elements like plot, setting, characterization, symbol, similes and metaphor also play a significant role. In this excerpt, the writer showed the plot and setting of painful condition of a dying soldier, who was injured in the civil war. She uses various similes and lyrical metaphors. For example, “Every breath he draws is like a stab.” Here by using metaphor “like a stab’, she succeeded to showed the real picture of a dying soldier to her readers. Once again, she uses another simile saying, “gathering the bent head in my arms as freely as if he had been a little child”. This example conveys the picture of John as a young child rests in his mother’s lap. Regarding characterization, by implementing analogies, she displays the altruistic mindset of the brave soldier, who joined the army for her mother and for his country. For instance, when she asked him. “Do you regret coming here”, he was positive at all and replied “I didn't want the glory or the pay; I wanted the right thing done, and people kept saying the men who were in earnest ought to fight. I was in earnest, the Lord knows! but I held off as long as I could, not knowing which was my duty; mother saw the case, gave me her ring to keep me steady”. Even when he is on

The theme of loss is portrayed similarly in the two poems ‘Disabled’ and ‘Out, out-’. Both of these poems are about the protagonist dealing with physical loss as they both experience an accident. Both Wilfred Owen and Robert Frost manage to mesmerize their audience’s attention, and also sympathize for the protagonists’ misfortune. They do this by the use of many literary techniques which are obvious at times, but some are very subtle, such as similes, metaphors, personification, and contrasts.

describing the characters and objects throughout the poem and in creating the atmosphere of the

Wilson Owen (1893-1918), a soldier that fought in WWI, uses aspects of prosody in his poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” (1917) to convey how trauma generates significant impact because one suffers from confusion during a deathly situation. The poet describes an experience he had while in war: “In all my dreams before my helpless sight, / he plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning” (Owen 15-16). Owen uses imagery to set the scene by describing his situation as something he cannot help. A fellow soldier is enveloped in tear gas and cannot find a gas mask so he plunges toward the author in attempt to receive his. Furthermore, he changes the rhythmical structure from iambic to trochaic in the last two beats, “choking, drowning” (Owen 16).

During times of war, it is inevitable for loss to be experienced by all. In the poems “The Black Rat” and “The Photograph” written by Iris Clayton and Peter Kocan respectively, the idea of loss is explored through an omniscient narrator recalling a soldier’s involvement in warfare. While Clayton writes of a soldier’s abrupt loss of hope and how this experience negatively affects his life, Kocan explores how the loss of a loved one affects a family sixty years later. While both poems incorporate similar techniques in imagery and narration, the time setting for each poem is different as “The Black Rat” is set in Tobruk, Libya during World War 2 and “The Photograph” is set during World War 1.

Throughout the poem, the author creates different tones using different types of figurative language and diction. The poet starts off the poem with the metaphor, “Although she feeds me

The way the poet used powerful word choices and emotion to show how he felt throughout the poem In the beginning of the poem it starts off sad but by the end of the poem it shows a side of anger. I thought the poem was very strong and powerful because of the personification he used. I think his poem was powerful because it felt personal and something relatable in his life. Throughout the poem the poet seemed like he was talking about someone in his life such as his partner. I think if the poet did not seem like he was talking to a partner then it would not be as straightforward as it was. Since he used personification throughout the poem it made me as a reader to be able to connect with what the poet and it made it feel more personal. I really liked the word choice the poet used throughout the poem. Some of the words stood out to me more than others. One word that really stood out to me when reading this poem was the word “shit.” While most poets do not use profanity, it helped show how he was feeling and the emotions he was using at that time. I think this poet was speaking from his life experience and wanted to show the emotions he was feeling when this was happening. I think people write poetry for an act of self-expression. I believe when a poet writes a poem that they are trying to write about a personal experience in their life. Also, a poem can be emotional and creative with only a

Orr uses imagery to show the reader that events can mentally scar one’s memory, in which a person vividly remembers that moment perfectly. To do this Orr uses lots of descriptive words and phrases that bring the reader to visualize the scene of the poem. An example is, "the dark stain already seeping across his parka hood"(2). The speaker has this image implanted in his mind, because it is the first thing that he sees right after he has shot his brother. As one reads this line, they can picture the image of blood seeping through the material of the hood in their mind, making them feel as if they are standing there with him. In addition, Orr uses the imagery of death throughout the poem. By writing, “In the bowl, among the vegetable chunks / pale shapes of the alphabet bobbed at random or lay in the shallow spoon” (15-17). The speaker is visualizing the pale deceased

Secondly, diction is a key aspect in this poem and is highly important due to its

Since the emergence of written history, many fables regarding war have encompassed a significant portion of prosodic literature. Two of the foremost war poets of the 19th and 20th century—Emily Dickinson and Rupert Brooke—have both written about profound implications of war on society and also upon the human spirit albeit in two very different styles. The book, Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger, theorizes through Allie, that Emily Dickinson was indubitably the superior war poet. Furthermore, when we analyze their works as well, we realize the invariable fact that Dickinson’s work delves into war with a much more holistic approach as well. She not only honours the soldiers for their valiant efforts, but also deftly weaves notions of liberty and civilian duty in regards to war as well as compared to Rupert Brooke who carried a romanticized imagery of martyrs within his poetry. In summation, Emily Dickinson is a superior war poet for her incisive analysis of death, and human nature in correspondence to war as compared to the patriotic salvos of Rupert Brooke’s poetry.

Poets frequently utilize vivid images to further depict the overall meaning of their works. The imagery in “& the War Was in Its Infancy Then,” by Maurice Emerson Decaul, conveys mental images in the reader’s mind that shows the physical damage of war with the addition of the emotional effect it has on a person. The reader can conclude the speaker is a soldier because the poem is written from a soldier’s point of view, someone who had to have been a first hand witness. The poem is about a man who is emotionally damaged due to war and has had to learn to cope with his surroundings. By use of imagery the reader gets a deeper sense of how the man felt during the war. Through the use of imagery, tone, and deeper meaning, Decaul shows us the

The short story is written in a colloquial tone and reads similarly to an unfocused train of thought, conveying simplicity and realism within the piece. The narrator frequently drifts from a complete statement to an aside throughout the narrative; for example, while discussing the poem his wife composed about her friend Robert he offhandedly recalls, “...I didn’t think much of the poem. Of course, I didn’t tell her that. Maybe I just don’t understand poetry,” (Carver 356). This passage, and others similar to it, cause the flow of the plot to meander, rather than adhere to a strict linear format. Additionally, while the abrupt and nonchalant remarks hold little substance to the narrator, they give the reader a window to the substantial disconnect between the narrator and his peers.

“He’s lost his color far from here”. This line gives the reader a true image of how horrific military wounds could be. The irony that the soldier of the poem “liked a blood smear down his leg” then becomes rather depressing for the reader. This irony also suggests to the reader how foolish the subject is, due to his want of a “blood smear” and then, ironically he obtains “a leap of purple spurted from his thigh”. As well as graphical contrasts, there are also cases of contrasts between atmospheres before and after the war. It is shown that pre war, majority of the community was more joyful; “voices of play and pleasure.” Now however, it seems to be solemn as seen in “Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn.” This line symbolizes a disheartening atmosphere and also has connotations of a funeral which, once again, proves the horrors of war portrayed by Wilfred

Use of free verse in this poem creates a lack of structure that appears to parallel the soldier’s own lack of structure and direction in his own life after he leaves the war. The poem begins with the image of a soldier's and his squadron raiding a farmhouse:

In Walt Whitman’s collection of Leaves of Grass, he includes many poems that are a compilation of his musings and thoughts. One thing that he does throughout his collection is that he creates goals through each poem to get different messages across. Some of his common messages, or underlying themes, are the Self, democracy, and the individual, but an interesting common theme found scattered throughout Leaves of Grass is the cycle of life and death, especially in comparison to the United States, the Civil War, and life itself. In “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” does such thing. Published in 1865, the pastoral elegy was written after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. This is the best way that Walt Whitman mourns a beloved public figure in his own modern world, and also the way he copes with the natural world. “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” best captures Whitman’s notion what it means to be human: the common understanding of the never-ending cycle of life and death through the form of the elegy, the symbol of the lilac, and the personification of death.