Thursday, March 31, 2011

"Male*" Et Decorum

Owen's viewpoint on war is glum at best. His poem Dulce et Decorum Est is a representation of his trifle with warfare. From his first dramatic description of a road march to how his comrade died horribly of a gas attack, nothing is jovially described. The man described who failed to obtain his gas mask in time is described "...like a devil's sick of sin", and how "...the blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs". As horrible as it seems, one can tell that what he is writing about is in fact true, albeit a definite modernistic approach. The title to me definitely spews sarcasm, and at the end of the poem even claims that the title is "The old Lie"... A young man's yearning for glory and respect back home can easily be taken away from him by a simple road march, or an accidental drop of a gas mask at the wrong time. It's not worth it to him, and writes about war in a negative tone because in one's relentless pursuit for glory, death can very easily get you first.

Pope on the other hand urges young men to enlist and fight for their country. In her poem Who's for the Game? She asks, "Who will grip and tackle the fight unafraid?...Who'll give his country a hand?" She's urging them to do so in a tonality that's almost as if she's saying, "You won't do it because you're scared", and of course an adolescent man is going to take that as a challenge. Very different viewpoint on war when compared to Owen, but then again Owen has been through hell, and eventually succumbed to the devil's game...

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