Suicide in the Trenches and Dulce Et Decorum Est Both by Wilfred OwenIn the poems Suicide in the Trenches and Dulce et Decorum est both by Wilfred Owen the poet has a very important message to convey to the reader. These poems are written about the horrors of World War I which Owen, the poet, experienced, fighting for Britain on the front line. Owen develops his significant ideas to the reader through a variety of techniques in the two poems, including the rhythm and rhyming scheme, contrast, the imagery and words used and the structure of the poems.
Suicide in the Trenches is about a “simple soldier boy” who is happy but ends up committing suicide because of the horrors of the war. Owen creates impact in this poem through the rhythm and rhyming scheme. The first stanza talks about the soldier boy’s innocence and happiness. The rhyming scheme is aa, bb, cc. This creates along with the words a bouncy, cheerful rythm. “I knew a simple soldier boy / who grinned at life in empty joy”. The effect of this is that it creates the feeling of reading a nursery rhyme to the reader. In fact the first stanza could be a nursery rhyme. The reader feels the soldier’s childlike innocence and sweet naivety.
In the second stanza Owen keeps the same rhyme scheme which contrasts with the stanza’s words and creates huge impact. The rhythm is the same, a strong nursery rhyme feel, creating a childlike naivety. But the words tell a different story. Owen tells of the awfulness of the war as from the trenches. He talks of “crumps”, “lice” and “cowed” as oppose to “whistling early with the lark” in the first stanza. This contrast is most noticeable in the last line of the stanza “he put a bullet through his brain”. The alliteration of the b sounds and the simple rhythm create a catch happy tone which is so inappropriate for the meaning of the line. This contrast creates an element of shock and horror to the reader. It shows how strongly Owen feels about his message of how terrible war is. The tone Owen gives the poem makes the reader feel strong emotion for this “simple soldier boy” for who the war is too devastating to bear, so he commits suicide.
After this shock in the second stanza, Wilfred Owen articulates his strong feelings in the third stanza. He addresses the reader saying “You smug faced crowd”. Owen implies that the “crowd” he talks of are ignorant because the cheer “soldier lads” going off to war, the same war Owen describes in a strong metaphor as “the hell where youth and laughter go”. This powerful last line chills the reader and finishes the poem off with Owen important message effectively conveyed to them. Just as the innocent and happy tone created in the first and second verses is inappropriate for the situation so is the cheering of the crowds inappropriate considering the crowds are cheering the “soldier lads” off to “the hell where youth and laughter go”. Owen feels that the crowds cheering for soldiers is so unsuitable and wrong because
The poem is the strongest in the section. In a tense or quiet moment his tone is tense and abrupt. As his character states: “A war is going on and I think it is going to break out, even for children and the young women who have got to the war room here with me.” In the fourth stanza he describes a war that he says is going to break out: “Nowhere is there war. I don’t think that they want it,” but what the heck they want” is not even close.” The tone does not change here, although the atmosphere does become heavy, and the sense of anger does begin to feel different as he finishes that sentence. The crowd chanting for war is indeed far enough for the military to be deployed, but it does not change the situation, as an unarmed man cannot protect the soldiers. In a final line he expresses his concern for soldiers in the army:
“We need to put those soldier-soldiers first. The war cannot break,‗ and if there is no peace, as a general rule, they will follow their masters who are not allowed in to the battlefield.”
‡(To some, as the war continues, this comment sounds like an attempt to call attention towards certain acts of treason that have happened. Such a remark isn’t helpful and would be more effective at dealing with the “television news” of the moment. Another point of view is that‡But instead of the army marching on war, the public needs to do it. Let those citizens tell their own story. Do you? Do you know how these soldiers who had to be taken out of the military immediately after their withdrawal know how to do that‡?)
Although Wilfred Owen has done a great job translating and improving some of the lines, as the scene starts to make sense he doesn’t provide any sort of direct insight into his character’s motivations or any of the other motivations he might have for what he thinks and tells them. In a similar way the narrator has made us more uncomfortable by giving some details that seem to contradict our current viewpoint on War by War but ultimately have very little to do with what is going on in the situation.
The poem is well-paced and the poem is well-engaged and the characters and dialogue are strong as it plays off of it and from there draws on the themes and themes of the story we’ve come to know and understand. One thing’s for sure: a true literary style and style is what helps the reader to express themselves through their own voices.
‡(For anyone in the audience, here is Wilfred Owen who was born and raised in West Wales in 1926 and who has spent his life on British public transport.)
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