Antiwar_Poem

Q- “Antiwar poetry interrogates statist notion of war and glory” Examine with reference to any two poems in tour syllabus. Participation in a war and death in combat are regarded as loyalty and glory for those who trigger wars and order soldiers to shed blood for the sake of their nation. However, rather than glorifying the heroic of combat, antiwar works demythologize war by illustrating the debilitating effects of warfare on the individual combatant. Here are two antiwar poems which aim at debunking popular myths about war: Wilfred Owen in his “Dulce et Decorum Est” subverts the illusions about the soldier as romantic hero and glorious battle field through realistic description, and Henry Reed in his “The Naming of Parts” shows the influence of war on naive individuals. They take shapes of different forms but their interrogations are clear: What the warfare which is wrapped in glory and honor really is. Henry Reed, who is the author of “The Naming of Parts”,which is the first in a sequence entitled “Lessons of the War”, was a war poet in the sense of the first hand experience as he was called up in 1941 as a translator of Japanese and underwent military training. Therefore, without that experience he would not have been able to write the three “Lessons of the War”. The principal theme of “Naming of parts” is recognition of power of military training and the semi-monastic conditions of army life which change the imaginative and creative man into something almost as impersonally destructive as a rifle. The most noticeable thing about “Naming of parts” is the difference between the two speakers’ thoughts. One is talking about a rifle, which is used to kill, whereas the other is talking about the nature and living things. The former is a trainer engaged in the mindless processes of army training, and his tone is dry and factual; the latter is probably a recent draftee for whom the training is just the enervating boredom of routine. Because of the effectiveness of the pro-war propaganda set out by the government at the outbreak of war, many men from all classes of society were morally induced to join the war effort. Men, as well as women, were the targets for the campaigns which attached to war such labels as nobility, honor and self-sacrifice. Nationalism, patriotism and heroism were deemed to be the greatest feelings one could have for one’s country. However, these men soon experienced the abhorrent and sickening conditions of trench warfare. They realized that it was a futile exercise which caused mass destruction and was a waste of many young lives. The trainee in the poem will be trained to kill for the sake of his nation and become like the trainer, who is used to kill having lost his humanity. However difficult it is to imagine today, the trainer must have also been like the trainee. Thus, both of them are victims of the war. The other antiwar poem Wilfred Owen‘s “Dulce et Decorum Est” (It is sweet and proper to die for one's country) is against different war but same idea Its realism is, however, much stronger than in the case of the previous poem. Wilfred Owen, a soldier poet, tried to enlighten us about fallacy of imagination of soldiers and that of war through his first hand experience. Wilfred Owen uses powerful words in order to depict the unnerving scenes of war and alliterations like "devil's sick of sin", to emphasize the reality. The cited line shows deliberate endeavor to present the ghastliness of the described situation. Likewise, he incorporates allusion into his visual imagery. For example, the "misty panes and thick green light" refer again to the gas warfare employed in the World WarⅠ. Even more important to Wilfred Owen 's poem is the vivid visual imagery. Every image from this poem starkly contradicts our typical image of a soldier. While most of people imagine a soldier as heroic and neat, Owen confronts us with soldiers that are "bent double, like old beggars". Further, Wilfred Owen realistically portrays the hardships of war, describing men who went shoeless, men who were unhealthy, and men who were physically exhausted. He describes a man's face in horrifying detail as he dies; his "white eyes," are blinded, and his lungs and throat bleed from the poison gas after he has been "flung" into a cart. At the end of a description of military life poem, Wilfred Owen creates irony by setting the patriotic sentiment: “It is sweet and proper to die for one's country”. As it is described in his poem, it seems neither sweet nor honorable. Finally, Wilfred Owen even says that the soldier’s death is no accident; he refers to the dying soldier’s last words calling them "The old Lie". The honorable wounds in combat and glorious death in it can only apply to politicians and journalists, who normally sit in the comfort of their homes and make statements on the bravery of soldiers in the name of patriotism. They use this propaganda to persuade people to become soldiers and die for their motherland, while the reality of combat is concealed under the patriotic and heroic warfare. If a person wounded in combat or a bereaved parent talks about war, there can be nothing glorious and honorable about it but only grief and hurt. So, Wilfred Owen wants to throw the war in the face of the reader to illustrate how vile and inhumane it really is. To conclude, everyone knows the meaning of words like victory, honor, stability, safety, freedom, security, success, or prosperity, and we are all aware that their application is much broader than only in the context of war. However, those words are sometimes utilized to cover the actual cruel and inhuman situation, or to convince to fight for the sake of one’s country under the veil of patriotism. Yet there are too many deaths and pain to regard wars as glory. That is why anti war poets endeavor to render these fallacies. Hence, we should understand it when they are saying that in a war, there can be defeat but not honor.