In Flander's Field Analysis

The poem, “In Flanders Fields,” is impregnated with imagery. “This poem was literally born of fire and blood during the hottest phase of the second battle of Ypres.” John McCrae had just lost his very close

During the early 1900’s, there was many events taking place throughout the world. One of them actually being World War I. John McCrae and Wilfred Owens were both soldiers in that particular war. One could only imagine all that these men had experienced and gone through during those times. To help one better envision and understand what they went through, they both had actually written poems about their times in the military during World War I. One would think that since both these gentlemen had been in the same war, they would experience the same things and write about the same as well. And yes, both of their writings and poems have similarities in style. However, their exposure to the war and violence made their poems very different in many ways. Both of their techniques, mood, and tone throughout their writings contrasts vastly.

“In Flanders Fields,” by John McCrae, suggests that dying for one’s country is glorious, even posing as a call to arms. McCrae’s imagery and diction conveys the tone of his views. In the first stanza of this poem, the line “Between the crosses, row on row/scarce heard amid the guns below” implies that as these soldiers have perished, war is still running amidst. The author’s imagery to convey this to the resemblance of “scarce heard amid the guns below” to the war going on and they [soldiers] can hear the war, symbolically. “We are the Dead...felt dawn, saw sunset glow” he mainly uses symbolism to emphasize their significance in war, that to show they are dead but won’t let their heroic deaths be in vain.

As I was looking through poems from World War I, one really caught my attention. In Flanders Fields by John McRae. This poem is heartfelt and is filled with powerful meaning that is written from the fallen soldier’s point of view. It’s about the soldiers who sacrificed themselves during the war. However, the soldiers want everyone to keep fighting instead of feeling sorrow.

The poem is written to represent all soldiers, regardless of allegiance, and shows that in death we are all joined as one, ‘the sand joins them together'. It does not boast about victory but rather the irony that no matter their race or country they all end up ‘on the other front'. Again the lines 17 and 18 really emphasize that in death the countries the soldiers were fighting for are irrelevant. Although the poem has a worldview, an Australian perspective is brought out through the ‘sway and wander' and ‘waves and fades' recreation of the sea. Kenneth Slessor is presenting a less optimistic view of the war perspective in Australia, one that does not celebrate the call to

After the war many participants daydreamed what they saw and they were not able to continue on with their lives as they were too shaken up from their experiences to be able to have a relationship or continue with their job and family. During the war soldiers experienced shellshock, they could not continue on with their duties and would be reduced to shivering wrecks and sent home, imprisoned or executed for cowardliness. Once they were sent home to recuperate but many never did and could not continue with their lives before the war. This meant that the families would have difficulty making money as the husband was unable to be employed so the mother would have to work, look after the children and take care of her husband, this made life very difficult on many families. Nurses also experienced shellshock during but mostly after their duty.

World War One, the Great war was a dreadful period of time, 1914-1917. Soldiers went through horrifying experiences such as trench war illnesses and diseases and psychological damage many more. A quote from Jose Narosky once said was ¨In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.¨, Means there isn't one soldier who goes through a horrifying experience and not being affected either physically or emotionally. A trauma many soldiers faced physically was trench war.

“I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.” In the words of Walt Whitman, to be empathetic is to feel another’s emotions. In order to feel the pain of others, one must experienced it themselves. War creates a situation where much empathy is needed to show compassion. John McCrae’s poem “In Flanders Fields”, Ernst Junger’s novel “ Storm of Steel” and the film “All Quiet on the Western Front”, demonstrate how war, specifically World War I, demands empathy. The motif and irony in the poem, the descriptive language and repetition in the novel, and the sounds throughout the movie, spark an empathetic emotion in the hearts of those who experience them.

After the Second Battle of Ypres there was no longer any doubt of the courage and strength of the Canadian troops. On May 2nd, McCrae’s close friend and one time student, Lieutenant Alexis H. Helmer was killed by a German shell. McCrae performed the burial himself in the absence of a chaplain service that night to avoid any enemy detention. The next day during a lull in the fighting, McCrae took a break and stared at the cemetery where his friend was buried the day before. He noticed that each day the rows of white crosses grew longer and the field of Flanders’ was carpeted with blood red poppies. John McCrae then spent twenty minutes scribbling fifteen lines of verse on a scrap piece of paper. When he was done he took the piece of paper and gave it to Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two year old sergeant major who was delivering mail that day. Allinson describes the seen:

From afar a sea of white crosses stood before me, and it took my breath away how many there were. As I walked past each grave no longer was it a an objective experience but personal. I watched people find their great grandfathers and fall to their knees and place red poppies before the crosses. It was in doing so, I found the grave of Private Robert ‘Bobby’ Johns, the youngest soldier to parachute into Normandy on D-Day, who was just 14 when he ran away from home to join the army, two years

An anti-war poem inspired by the events of the Vietnam War, Homecoming inspires us to think about the victims of the war: not only the soldiers who suffered but also the mortuary workers tagging the bodies and the families of those who died in the fighting. The author, Australian poet Bruce Dawe, wrote the poem in response to a news article describing how, at Californian Oaklands Air /Base, at one end of the airport families were farewelling their sons as they left for Vietnam and at the other end the bodies of dead soldiers were being brought home. Additionally, he wrote in response to a photograph, publishes in Newsweek, of American tanks (termed ‘Grants’ in the poem) piled with the bodies of the dead soldiers as they returned to the

World War One, known by many as the “Great War”, lives in infamy as one of the harshest, brutal wars in history. While the high amount of casualties decimated populations, another huge factor was the toll the war had on the youth that served. The madness that was known as trench warfare was the stuff of nightmares, from the horrid living conditions, to the unpredictability of the opposing onslaught of artillery, soldiers were surrounded by death. This trauma and constant stress ruined countless lives, old and young. If the bullets did not get you, the stress would. The question was when, not how. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, author Erich Maria Remarque told the story of a young man named Paul Bäumer, and how he and

There are wars going on everyday in our lives, while some people are going through the same, they have many of the same thoughts going through their heads. In the book All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria , and “Suicide in the trenches” by Siegfried Sassoon, although their character are in different parts of World War 1 they have numerous of the comparable thought during this time. Paul and Siegfried have similar conditions when they are fighting on The Front, as Siegfried states in the poem “...In winter trenches, cowed and glum, With crumps and lice and lack of rum…’’(Sassoon). Paul describes a similar setting in All Quiet, since it was constantly at war and with all passed away bodies on the ground the trenches were unimaginable

War is not heroic. War is sickness, struggle, and death. This is the message that poet and World War I soldier Wilfred Owen wanted to instill in his people back home. Those back home talked of glory and national pride and rooted for their soldiers, however, they were unaware of the horrors these soldiers witnessed and experienced. The soldiers and their people back home were not only separated by distance but by mental barriers, which Owen showcases in his poetry. Owen’s use of personification in “Anthem for Doomed Youth” degrades the soldiers to objects to show how the war dehumanized them to intentionally create a disconnect between the audience and the soldiers.

The WW1 affected the soldiers physically through severe injuries and often left them traumatized with ‘shell shock’ by the things that they had seen like. The trauma resulted from the soldiers’ experience of the