AO2 – Explore how the writer gets his/her ideas across. How do they use language devices, structural devices, written form.
AO3 – Explore the contexts that influence the text: biographical, setting, cultural, social: attitudes to gender, race, social class, morality, religion.
AO4 – Show you understand that a text is influenced by its genre: poetry, prose, gothic, romance, realist, bildungsroman, romance, thriller, pastoral etc.
Wilfred Owen
AO2: Dulce et Decorum est:
"The poem opens with a description of trench life and the conditions faced by the soldiers. Then comes the gas attack, and the poem offers a graphic description of the effects of such an attack." http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/poetryowen/2owen_dulcestructrev1.shtml
The opening stanza is characterised by language about 'fatigue': the soldiers 'marched asleep', they 'trudge', and 'limped on'. They are 'deaf', 'lame' and 'blind'; all rather pitiful language intended to reveal the reality of war and its effects.
The speaker describes a vision in a dream of a gas victim 'guttering, choking, drowning'. The listed verbs are associated with a lack of air and death.
The language used in the sections depicting the gas attack is strong, representing both the anguish of the victims of the gas attack as well as the effect on those haunted by what they have seen: 'watch the white eyes writhing in his face, / His hanging face'. The repetition of the word 'face' makes it clear which element disturbs the speaker most: the transformation in the face of the victim. The use of alliteration on the 'w' sound reflects the agonised twisting of the gas victim.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/poetryowen/2owen_dulcestructrev2.shtml
This nightmare scenario is heightened by words which gather in intensity: ‘guttering,’ ‘choking,’ and ‘drowning’ in l.16. The use of the word ‘guttering’ is particularly unsettling. A candle gutters as it goes out for lack of air, just as the man dies for lack of oxygen.
Owen’s use of repeated sounds picks up the alliteration of the title. ‘Dulce’ and ‘Decorum’ are the two contentious, abstract nouns meaning ‘sweet’ and ‘honourable’, which he revisits in the final lines of the poem. Joined as they are by the similar sounds of ‘et’ and ‘est’, they set a pattern for the alliteration which follows.
S.I.W: STRUCTURE: The Prologue: A prologue is that which goes before or leads to another event or action. In prologue Owen explains the background that will produce the events of the main action.
The Action: The dramatic heart of S.I.W is the boys suicide we only get to hear of the manner of his death, rather than being present at the moment when he puts the rifle in his mouth.
The Poem: Owen uses this unusual heading for his own reflection on the reason for his action.
The Epilogue: The opposite of the prologue is the epilogue- what happened afterwards, Owen simply and ironically tells us how the story ends- another death in war is not a shocking circumstance due to war being 'war'.
Colloquial language: 'Lad' giving the working class a voice, as the majority are the ones suffering the pain due to the ruling classes decisions.
The family of the boy who committed suicide at the front line had expectations and attitudes of war being honourable, which mirrors the attitudes and expectations of the public during the time of World War One.
During the poem the reality of death becomes a routine when Owen mentions 'men shoots their hands' and the 'English ball.'
Throughout the poem, Owen builds tension of a young boy trying to fight through war ensuring his family that he is okay, when in reality he wants to escape the torture which he soon acts upon by taking his own life and dying 'smiling.'
The everyday realities of the Western Front are communicated by references to things such as the ‘butt’ of the lad’s rifle , the hourly ‘bullet’ , the ‘sandbags’, lack of ‘leave’, ‘wounds’, ‘fever’, ‘trench foot’ and ‘shock.' http://crossref-it.info/textguide/wilfred-owen-selected-poems/36/2629
AO3: Wilfred Owen wrote about his intense experiences of being a soldier in the British World War. Owen was generally influenced by the lies the ruling elite shared to the public, and it was in his greatest interest to share his personal experience to shock the audience of the traumatic realities of War. Within a matter of weeks of being at the front line he began to witness the ugliness of the War, and was to an extent shocked considering all the lies of the War being described as 'honourable' by the clueless and the powerful. He wrote to portray his truthful emotions and thoughts while present at the war himself, and to speak strongly against the patriotic ideology, which was the main cause of the continuation of the First World War.
'From the age of nineteen Wilfred Owen was motivated in becoming a poet and immersed himself in poetry, being especially influence by Keats and Shelley.'
http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owena.htm
Three statements by Owen
"All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the poet must be truthful."
"The people of England needn't hope. They must agitate." Letter 19 January, 1917, shortly after arriving at the front line in France.
"I am more and more a Christian... Suffer dishonour and disgrace, but never resort to arms. Being bullied, be outraged, be killed: but do not kill." Letter to his mother, May 1917. http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owena.htm
AO4: World War I.
Genre.
War poem.
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War.
Owen often resists the dominant patriotic ideology in both of his poems, it is also obvious that Owen is against the ruling elites views in both and consistently goes against the opinions of the higher class giving the proletariat a voice. The two poems often reflect back to home life throughout, addressing to the audience at the time of the World War that the pressure of sending their family to war is killing them, and those like the ruling class are to blame. Overall the most obvious opinion of his throughout the two poems is this hate towards the bourgeoisie, which is expressed due to the experiences he has had being alienated by them being at the front line himself.
AO5: http://abbiecolemanluttlit123.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/wilfred-owen-useful-quotations-marxism.html
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