Poetry Of War
...nce is sending him unsure signals to kill his foe. However, because the narrator is under oath and command to serve and protect his country, he must do what he feels is wrong. The narrator cannot find a good reason to prove his action innocent, and therefore proving the foolishness and loss of innocence in war. The second poetic device present in this poem is tone. The speaker’s tone is sarcastic and critical. “Yes; quaint and curious war is!” You shoot a fellow down You’d treat if met where any bar is, Or help to half-a-crown.” This quote contrasts how the narrator would have befriended his foe if they were in a bar “Or help to half-a-crown”. Being critical of him self, and war in general. The sarcastic statement “Yes! Quaint and curious war is!” is like saying war is “a comical thing”. This statement promotes that war as harmless and tolerable. The events in the poem as well as the reader’s own knowledge of war make it apparent that war is not “quaint and curious”. These quotes apply to the narrators use of sarcastic and critical tone successfully as well as the irony. Applying to the theme of loss of innocence in war, the narrator uses his sarcastic and critical tone to prove the point that if the enemy’s life he took at war, was sitting beside him in a bar; he would offer him a drink. Just because he was commanded to kill, he did so, being stripped of his innocence due to the unruly acts of war. Therefore the loss of innocence in war is effectively developed through the poetic devices of irony and tone in Thomas Hardy’s poem, “The Man He Killed.” To further develop the loss of innocence in war, Siegfried Sassoon’s poem “Base Details” efficiently uses a poetic device to support the theme. Siegfried’s poem allows the reader to achieve a greater glimpse into the eyes of a selfish, shameful soldier. The device present in the poem “Base Details” is synecdoche. The quote “Yes, we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap.” (line 6). The word “scrap” is applying to a field overflowing with violence, rage, soldiers, and enemies. This applies to the loss of innocence in war because Sassoon is referring to war itself as if it were a high school fight, or “scrap”. Soldiers who have put their life on the frontlines in battle should under no circumstances be compared to a high school fight. On line 6 it’s stated “Reading the Roll of Honor. “Poor young chap, I’d say” and on line 9, “And when war is done and youth stone dead” shows how war takes away our inexperienced youth to their deaths, unable to experience the joy of life. In summary, the loss of innocence in war is developed in “Base Details”, Siegfried Sassoon with the aid of he poetic device, synecdoche. Lastly, the poem “Dulce Et Decorum Est” written by Wilfred Owen evidently proves to maintain the theme of loss of innocence in war effortlessly with numerous poetic devices. Owen widely opens eyes and shocks readers with a striking war story told by a WW1 veteran. Imagery is the first device present in “Dulce Et Decorum Est”. Owen establishes outstanding imagery in the first line and stanza of the poem, “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge”, and “But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;” These two quotes paint the painful picture of what the war veterans went through to save their countries. Both quotes are evident to loss of innocence is war “like old beggars under sacks”. Beggars are not seen as innocent people, but looked down upon by society; we see unwanted pain in their depressing, cold faces. In the second quote “But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind” represents more torture and lingering pain, having yet little knowledge about their situations and surroundings. All goodness and innocence is stripped from the soldiers leaving them with nothing to hold onto except hope. Owens knowledgeable diction creates a dreamlike nightmare quality to the poem. This is achieved in the second stanza where it states, “Dim through the misty panes and thick green light” and in the last stanza, “If in some smothering dreams, you too cold pace”...