War and Memory in Irene Zabytko?s ?Home Soil?, Bruce Weigl?s ?Song of Napalm?, and Wilfred Owen?s ?Dulce et Decorum Est?

“Facing it” by Yusef Komunyakaa and “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen, are two powerful poems with the graphical life like images on the reality of war. It is apparent that the authors was a soldier who experienced some of the most gruesome images of World War I. In “Ducle et Decorum Est” Owen tells us about a personal experience in which he survived a chemical warfare attack. Although he survives, some of his fellow troops do not. As in “Facing It” Komunyakaa is also a soldier who has survived a war. Komunyakaa response to his war experience is deeply shaped by his visit to Lin’s memorial. Inspired by the monument, Komunyakaa confronts his conflicted feelings about Vietnam, its legacy, and even more broadly, the part race plays in

People both today and back then have been traumatized by war’s brutal combat, fallen victim to cruel soldiers, and had war cause sorrow and grief to them. Through characters seeing death, characters that are soldiers, and characters that are not in combat, Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See demonstrates that war affects individuals negatively, even if they are extremely

The topic of war is hard to imagine from the perspective of one who hasn't experienced it. Literature makes it accessible for the reader to explore the themes of war. Owen and Remarque both dipcik what war was like for one who has never gone through it. Men in both All Quiet on the Western Front and “Dulce Et Decorum” experience betrayal of youth, horrors of war and feelings of camaraderie.

I remember the smell, the sounds, the taste of blood. I remember seeing my comrades fall beside me, the sting of the cuts. The numbness as I fell alongside them, the sadness, the tears. The price of war, I believe my father said that to me before he died. I remember being lifted and carried, I remember a laugh. Then I felt my mind slowly becoming numb, and soon my mind was consumed by the darkness. Like a wildfire it spread from the farthest of places, destroying everything in its’ path. It was over, the war was lost, hope gone; at least until today….

A War Within Not every memory is happy. Not every memory beckons to be relived over and over again. Some are too painful and too confining. In Yusef Komunyakaa’s poem “Facing It,” the narrator is faced with just that--a difficult memory, still clinging to his mind. In the poem, when the narrator visits the Vietnam War Memorial, he is faced with a choice either to accept the memories as part of who he is and who he has become and move on, or to simply let the past consume him.

War has been a terrible driving force throughout history. One can come to the conclusion that war is a gruesome experience that causes one to become blinded by anger, regret their actions, and feel immense amounts of sorrow for and towards others. The works of literature written by Erich Maria Marque, Thomas Hardy, and Denise Levertov help to shed light on these horrors of war.

Wilfred Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” makes the reader acutely aware of the impact of war. The speaker’s experiences with war are vivid and terrible. Through the themes of the poem, his language choices, and contrasting the pleasant title preceding the disturbing content of the poem, he brings attention to his views on war while during the midst of one himself. Owen uses symbolism in form and language to illustrate the horrors the speaker and his comrades go through; and the way he describes the soldiers, as though they are distorted and damaged, parallels how the speaker’s mind is violated and haunted by war.

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

As long as there has been war, those involved have managed to get their story out. This can be a method of coping with choices made or a way to deal with atrocities that have been witnessed. It can also be a means of telling the story of war for those that may have a keen interest in it. Regardless of the reason, a few themes have been a reoccurrence throughout. In ‘A Long Way Gone,’ ‘Slaughterhouse-Five,’ and ‘Novel without a Name,’ three narrators take the readers through their memories of war and destruction ending in survival and revelation. The common revelation of these stories is one of regret. Each of these books begins with the main character as an innocent, patriotic soldier or civilian and ends in either the loss of innocence and regret of choices only to be compensated with as a dire warning to those that may read it. These books are in fact antiwar stories meant not to detest patriotism or pride for one’s country or way of life, but to detest the conditions that lead to one being so simpleminded to kill another for it. The firebombing of Dresden, the mass execution of innocent civilians in Sierra Leone and a generation of people lost to the gruesome and outlandish way of life of communism and Marxism should be enough to convince anyone. These stories serve as another perspective for the not-so-easily convinced.

The mental implications of war on the soldiers challenged the way they functioned day to day. In the ‘Next War’ Owen demonstrates the mental implications through personifying death and engaging the responder with sensory imagery.

“Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen is written 3 years later in 1918, after “Who’s for the Game” by Jessie Pope. His perspective on war is gravely affected on how the war has been on him. He talks about the excruciating pain the majority of the soldiers were in and the spontaneous chemical gas bomb that blew up on their way home. Many of the soldiers themselves were in horrid conditions. “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge”(1-3) In “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen the title is a shortened version of the phrase “ Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”, meaning “it is sweet and proper to die for one’s country” It is used ironically in this poem because the whole point of this poem is revealing the truth that it is not sweet and glorious to die for one’s country. In fact, the truth is that phrase is a lie meant to persuade children who are desperate for glory and popularity to join the war. “To the children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori”(27- 280) This creates the mood of sadness, because of the idea that so many kids have been lied to and just gave up their

Since Antiquity, it has inspired a vast song repertoire, which has been able to describe tragic events in a vivid and striking way.

The poem “Dulce et Decorum est” by Wilfred Owen is an appalling and thought provoking poem that depicts the horrors of the First World War, focusing on a horrific gas attack. The latin words “Dulce et Decorum est” translate to “It is sweet and proper”, the first words of the phrase “It is sweet and proper to die for the fatherland”. Owen effectively uses the poetic technique of irony to disprove this statement, by graphically describing atrocious scenes of war. Through these descriptions, the poet creates vivid , effective imagery for the reader and conveys a powerful message – that there is nothing glorious or honorable about fighting and dying for your country.

The title itself gives us a clue of this idea, as the Latin phrase “Dulce et Decorum est” is a reference to a phrase from Horace which translates to “It is sweet and honourable to die for your country”, a well-known slogan of the time, represents a view Owen strongly disagrees with. Furthermore, the author’s discord with war is clear from the closing lines of the poem “My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie”. The “high zest” used to convince men to go to war embitters him, as he sees war as brutal and a waste of young

Wilfred Owen uses graphic imagery in his poem “Dulce et decorum est” to portray the horror of war and send a message to the people who glorified war when they had not been to war. The poem describes war in a way that had not been used prior to World War I, and reveals the reality of war. Using figurative language to paint a realistic image of war in the reader's mind, as well as using the word we to establish the speaker as a soldier, Owen is able to send the message that war is not glorious, it is bloody and disgraceful. The title itself is irony as the words Dulce et decorum est translate to it is sweet and honorable, but Owen’s writing does not show war and honorable or right in anyway.