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Analysis on war poems
Brief essay on war poetry
War poetry analysis
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Analysis on war poems
Brief essay on war poetry
War poetry analysis
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In the poem Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind by Stephen Crane, Stephen talks about the aspects of war and the effects it has on people outside of the war. Another poem called the sonnet-ballad by Gwendolyn Brooks, talks about a woman who has just lost her lover do to the war and is asking her mother where happiness is. In both texts, the authors focus on the negative and how cruel war really is. Although the authors focus the the horrific parts of war, Brooks sees beauty in war and how tempting it is. However, Crane only focuses the dreadful and grim parts of war.
Bierce’s “Chickamauga”, Howell’s “Editha,” and Twain’s “The War Prayer” all offer strong attacks against the sentiment that war is glorious and holy. Each of the stories takes place during one of the American Wars. All of the short stories show how society at the time viewed war, also the true horrors of the war through realism. Each story uses a different techniques to prove that war isn’t holy or glorious at all.
War is a harsh reality that is inflicted upon the unwilling through the “need” of it’s predecessors and those whom wish it. All Quiet on The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is about 19 year old Paul and his friends in the “Second Company”. Even though they are just out of school age, they have already seen things that many could not bear to even think about. Eventually, all of his friends die, and even Paul too, dies. Remarque uses diction and syntax as literary devices to express his anti-war theme, or lesson.
Although the soldier he killed was an enemy soldier, instead of vilifying him he was able to humanize the man. O’Brien was able to describe the physical appearance of the soldier and imagine her life before war. The author was able to portray an emotional connection and made the line between friend and enemy almost vanish. This was able to reveal the natural beauty of shared humanity even in the context of war’s horror. O’Brien is able to find the beauty in the midst of this tragic and horrible event.
The history and self-identity of the United States Marine Corps are based on operations in foreign environments. Since 1898, the United States military has been intervening in abroad. However, some of the US military interventions in other countries have been criticized, which include the Vietnam War. The Vietnam conflict is seen absolutely to have no sense politically, militarily, or economically, because “when a nation goes to war, it must have reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause” (page 34). Therefore, the dispatching of the underage recruits to that war was to subdue them unduly to adversary-induced psychosomatic disorders.
Brides to be never got the chance to actually become brides ,mothers never saw their sons again while babies never met their fathers. Stephen Crane informs the reader the hardships of war through irony and sarcasm. In, “War is Kind” Stephen Crane wrote “Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind,”.. ”Do not weep, babe, for war is kind,” ..” Mother whose heart hung humble as a button On the bright splendid shroud of your son, Do not weep,” which shows the reader that fiancees/wives, mothers and children never got to see their loved ones again due to the hardships of the war.
War carries important morals that heighten the perspective of men and women on their nation, but it also entails many acts and experiences that leave lasting effects on their emotional and physical state. Throughout the following texts, Paul Baumer, the dead soldiers, and Kiowa’s comrades all sustain losses that compel them to persevere and fight harder. All Quiet on the Western Front, Poetry of the Lost Generation, and an excerpt from In the Field all connect to the recurring theme, horrors of war, that soldiers face everyday on the front line through the continuous battle. War involves gruesome battles, many of which lead to death, but these events forever affect the soldier’s mind and body. In All Quiet on the Western Front, men experience horrific sights, or horrors of war, through the depiction of the terrain, death, and the
Through Farquhar, Bierce shows how soldiers on both sides were merciless in their acts, a fact that would never be mentioned if Romantic writings were all that remained from this era. Fast forward several decades, World War Two has consumed the planet, and officers are just as cruel as they were in the Civil War. “Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” by Randall Jarrell, announces, through the form of a poem, the callousness of the military in WWII. A man thinks he is safe under the protection of the State, but the poem tells that, “When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.” (“Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” by Randall Jarrell).
The Misguided Prayer War is a dreadful act, the loss of countless lives of ones who wish to bring honor to their name and country; yet, dying in the name of your country is viewed as a noble act. A victory in the game of war is not easily achieved. In order for one to win, one must lose something in return- for some it's their loved ones, for others it's their sense of morality. In Mark Twain’s satire, The War Prayer, Twain goes into detail about the cost of victory and uncovers the immorality hidden within people’s prayers. Throughout this satire, Mark Twain uses irony and ridicule to shed light on what war really is and how victory is obtained.
For example colonel Read said,” Be brave and help your mother bear up she needs somebody now” (Collier and Collier 200). This shows that you get torn apart and depressed during war. The authors Collier and Collier's viewpoint on war is futile. One way the authors argue against war is the Meeker family is torn apart. The Meekers go through hard times as the book progresses.
Robert Olen Butler, a fiction writer, enjoys that he is able to create a story in which it can take any route. When he says, “Fiction is ultimately the art form of human yearning” he is referring to his own work in a sense. One of his texts, “Fairy Tale,” tells about a nonstandard fairytale. A Vietnamese immigrant comes to the United States and works as a prostitute as she is trying to make a living for herself in her new home (“Fairy Tale” 1). Miss Noi ultimately meets her prince charming and ends up living in “a nice little house and she is a housewife with a toaster machine” (“Fairy Tale” 7).
Chris Hedges, a former war correspondent, has a memory overflowing with the horrors of many battlefields and the helplessness of those trapped within them. He applies this memory to write War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, where he tutors us in the misery of war. To accomplish this goal, Hedges uses impactful imagery, appeals to other dissidents of war and classic writers, and powerful exemplification. Throughout his book, Hedges batters the readers with painful and grotesque, often first-hand, imagery from wars around the globe. He begins the book with his experience in Sarajevo, 1995.
/ War is kind,” to showcase the fact that war is ugly and painful not only for those who perish in it (the men whose deaths are described), but also for those who grieve because of it (the women whose lives are forever changed by war). Additionally, verbal irony can be found in stanzas two and four, in which Crane chooses words that, taken literally, speak of the glory of war in order to highlight the shame of it. For instance, Crane writes, “These men were born to drill and die / The unexplained glory flies above them / Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom – / A field where a thousand corpses lie” (Crane 8-11).
Throughout human history, war has been a common solution to settle conflict or disagreements between people. War has and will always be apart of this world, because no matter how much death it causes humans will never change. Some people have come to see the idiocy in war and have even written about it in poems, short stories, etc. One of these people, Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, has mocked this absurd and pointless practice. Twain’s essay The War Prayer satirizes the customs of praying for safety and victory in war and for equating war with patriotism.
We live in a world where we have to hide to make love, while violence is practiced in broad daylight. John Lennon. Based on his own reading and reflection, Bruce Dawe constructs his attitudes towards war in his poems, Homecoming and Weapons Training, believing it to be lacking sense historically and ultimately futile. By specifically addressing an Australian cultural context, the poet exposes a universal appeal in that the insensitivity and anonymity are common attitudes towards soldiers during war. Dawe clearly expresses his ‘anti-war sentiment’ through his use of language and imagery as he examines the dehumanising aspects of war and its brutal reality.