The End of the War is Just the Beginning Essay Example for Free

The End of the War is Just the Beginning EssayIn the world of poetry, the most(prenominal) inspirational topics ar often the most tragic. War is one of those subjects that extract a bottomless well of stories, opinions, and emotions. Leningrad Cemetery, Winter of 1941 and Dulce et Decorum Est atomic number 18 two examples of poems centered around skirmish with different perspectives on war itself.In the poem Leningrad Cemetery, Winter of 1941, author Sharon Olds gives an account of a visit to a burial site where hundreds of dead bodies lay, victims of the siege on the city of Leningrad in World War II. The image is further darkened by the fact that since the ground is frozen, the corpses be unable to be buried. The boilers suit effect stoold by this poem is to show the brutality of that period on and off the battlefield, as well as to convey the message that there is no hiding from the truth the world is not a perfect place. The use of metaphors and similes, diction, sounds of words, and most importantly, the overall tone communicates harsh details. Though distri excepted through break through the work, these features argon fewtimes concentrated in specific sections my guess is to create a strongereffect en masse.Though written without stanzas, I could see this poem being split into four separate leave-takings. The first part serves as an objective view of the cemetery itself and describing the image before the speaker. The first line That winter, the dead could not be buried (1) creates the sort of impact that Olds wanted to have carried throughout the whole poem. This unflinching depiction of truly gruesome scenes is what makes this piece so powerful. Readers are presumption an image of bodies lying in the cold and then told that the coffins were burned for firewood and that the gravediggers too hungry to work. This is, to say the least, a very bleak picture. When I read the neighboring section, the s sounds filled me with a bit of a chil l like I could feel the cold of the winter there.So they were covered with somethingand taken on a childs sled to the cemeteryin the sub-zero air. (5)This is an example of one of the many tactics used by the author to further draw the reader in and make the poem more of an involving experience and not just some words on a page.The next defining section comes with the description of the corpses themselves, though not in a the same grisly detail-filled way as would be suspected after what had been written so far. Although the overall descriptions are tragic, they are camouflaged by metaphors and similes dealing with positive messages in an attempt to pull away from this grim spectacle. Corpses wrapped with dark cloth and rope are compared to a trees ball of roots/ when it wants to planted(8) an image often associated with the beginning of somethings life, not the end. The same lifelike comparison is found in the next sentence when those wrapped with sheets are associated with cocoons that will split down the center/ when the new life inside is prepared (11). An opposite very positive outlook on the current situation, barely also very out of place, especially considering the diction used later to describe the corpses as, pale, gauze, tapered shapes/stiff (10).However, the work then takes a complete backsliding and changes positions very quickly, taking the antithesis of the previous comparisons by associating the bodies with inanimate objects naked calves/ hard as corded wood(14). Its as if the speaker is cave ining back to the reality of the hand over situation from the temporary escape the speaker had just made with his positive descriptions and allusions to new life. The use of sounds of words is used once again, but with a perspicacious k sound to emphasize the harshness of the surroundings.But most lay like corpses, their coveringscoming undone, naked calveshard as corded wood spillingfrom infra a cloak, a hand reaching out (15)This harsh alliteration gets back to and more closely follows one of the original motivations of the poem, to shock and disturb readers.The experience part of this poem, without a doubt, holds its most powerful image and in turn its most powerful message serving as the best example of the pieces clean forward and introspective tone.From under a cloak, a hand reaching outwith no sign of peace, wanting to come backeven to the gelt made of glue and sawdust,even to the icy winter, and the siege. (18)Throughout this work, there are a number of references to death and life, ends and beginnings, but this is the only mentioning of a longing to return to life from death. It strongly communicates the idea that any sort of life that the reader is leading, no matter how bad, is a life nonetheless for which he or she should be grateful. Here these corpses lay and would give anything to be alive, even if it meant living in this awful place under these terrible conditions. Its better than death.The use of general and statuesque features explains both the speakers attitude towards the scene at the cemetery as well as creates a stance on greynesss theories concerning the lust of the eye. The two practically co-occur because the goal of the work is to recreate the scene that caught the speakers eye in the first place. Then relay it to the listening and capture them with the lust of the poetic ear. Shock and admiration are prevalent throughout this piece, especially in the end and the sight of the outstretched hand.Though different from Grays panoramic and impersonal images of power and destruction, these grisly images evoke the same lust of the eye in the speaker and upon viewing them, he tries to delude himself. By comparing the images he sees to more positive visions he arse relate to, such as the butterfly cocoon and the trees roots, he feels more comfortable, it calms him. These ideas are but fleeting, though, and he is brought back to realize that the world is no eternal perfect. It is as he sees it and no more, and that is overall message. There is no escape from the truth.In the poem Dulce et Decorum Est, author Wilfred Owen provides the reader with not just one, but two entirely different views on war, both of which vary greatly from Olds. Written in an as it happens type style, the piece depicts a group of soldiers caught in the middle of a mustard gas attack during World War I. Owen then switches gears and describes the aftermath of the assault with a cynical view not plain in the first half of the poem. The purpose and overall effect of this poem is tell the reader that the messages created by the media are wrong and that dying for ones country is not a glorious thing. This idea cant be truly realized unless one has looked death in the nerve personally. The use of tone, tomography, diction, and stanzas are crucial in acquiring this top across and I have pointed out where and how they are utilized.The first thing that struck me approximately this poem wa s the impact created by the imagery used by the author. Like the Leningrad cemetery, this view it is powerful in scope only filled more with action and allows less time for reflection by the reader. The first scene is described as a group of soldiers returning from battle Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,/ Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we give tongue to through the sludge, (2) Moving as this image is, it is somewhat ironic that the imagery can be so powerful when you consider that due to the gas, the senses of the speaker and his companions are practically inoperable.This somehow enhances what the reader experiences. I say this because if these soldiers could take everything in, it wouldnt be any great surprise for them because they were so desensitized to war, a familiar concept matt-up in Olds poem. I often viewed the speaker in the Leningrad cemetery as being someone like a reporter or gravedigger that no prolonged sees the bodies as the truly lay. He can only see t he images that the bodies remind him of. However, by describing normally insignificant events of battle going on around those numbed physically and mentally, the audience is given a clearer picture of what the world they are living in is like. Drunk with fatigue deaf even to the hoots/ Of disappointing shells that fell tail end (8). Bombs fall around them and they pay no heed. This ignorance lasts not for long though.Gas Gas Quick, boys An ecstasy of fumbling/ Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time (10). This surprising interjection of action breaks the ambience of the background noise and the silent solace in which they marched. Inventive and unorthodox diction is responsible for making some of the most profound statements in this section that much more noticeable. Not only for the scenes these words help to create, but to make the reader stop and principal their usage.The use of the word ecstasy to describe the fumbling of the gas mask caught my eye. Whether we should view thi s as comical or just plain hopeless leaves the audience uncertain what to feel and in a way temporarily pulls the reader away from the seriousness of the current situation. But someone still was yelling out and stumbling/ And floundering like a man in fire or lime (12). Gripped with a fear for his own life and the gravity of the moment, the speaker can do nothing but watch his comrade guttering, choking, drowning (16). Another example of how the power of the diction fuels the fire of the emotions already being felt by the reader. Its after this point that the speaker reaches his breaking point and realizes that things will never be the same.The stanzas, which had been similar in length and mostly objective, take a dramatic turn in the last half of the poem. After watching his companion die, a new stanza starts only two lines in length. As in the first poem, the last part of the work takes a turn to make an overriding point with just one image. In these sentences, the speaker stops r eflecting on the past and talks about the present. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight/ He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning (16). We realize that for the speaker, this war has never really ended for him, but just keeps getting replayed over and over in his head. He knows hell never be able to shake that image and expresses his feelings in the final stanza.In this last and most important paragraph, time slows down and the memory burned into the speakers head comes bubbling to the surface, as fresh as if he had seen it yesterday. He accounts, with gruesome details, the body of a dying soldier flung in the back of a cart. A man whose slow death he had been witnessing for the past few minutes and was unable to help. He was now on his way to being just another statistic and the all the speaker could do was watch. And watch the white eyes writhing in his face/ His hanging face, like a devils sick of sin (20). It is here that his tone becomes obvious and he relays to read ers his belief about war and that the glory so often talked about is absent when it comes to dying on the battlefield. As General Patton once said, No man ever died for his country. Go out and make some other man die for his country.Both of these poems strongly emphasize the aftermath of war more than the grand spectacle itself. Its this shared factor that in a way negates what Gray says about the lust of the eye and becoming separated from the world by the panoramic and jaw dropping sight of battle. Though neither of the poems disproves this idea, both Olds and Owen concentrate on on a different lust of the eye, one having more to do with what is seen at the end and not so much during the conflict itself. The images of the dead create a lasting impression in the readers minds that as uncomfortable as it may be, must be a thousand times worse for a material witness. It gives me a whole new respect for veterans. I no longer appreciate just what they did, but what they have to live w ith.