The way weaponry has been portrayed. Essay Example for Free

The way weaponry has been portrayed. EssayTheme The way weaponry has been portrayed. end-to-end literature poets have officed various literary devices in order to convey their message to the audience. Wilfred Owen has cleverly personified weaponry in the context of contend and has twist it in his poetrys. This in turn accentuates the message he is trying to convey the paradox of War. The use of this tool is most prominent in three of his poems, The culture Laugh, Arms and The Boy and Anthem for Doomed Youth. In these poems he deposts weapons as sinister, flesh-hungry savages whose only purpose is to kill. In Anthem for Doomed Youth Wilfred Owen writes and elegiac praise moaning the loss of innocent life. Like his other poems to one too is steeped in irony. War he wants to point out is not fanfargon and glory. It is dirt and flub and pain and struggle which ultimately end in goal. His view of war is greatly influenced by his own experiences. Disenchanted, brutalised and l ied to by his own nation he c atomic number 18 so many others felt betrayed.They were taught that war was glorious and soldiers were proud and valiant, the truth of it was that war was none of these and soldiers were being herded like cattle to tthose finishs. He goes on to personify weapons in the Last Laugh as mocking the soldiers that they ruthlessly killed victimisation words such(prenominal) as guffawed and chirped In the poem Arms and the Boy, Owen changes the portrait of the weapon and showcases it as a toy that is being handed out to a child Let the son try a grand this bayonet-blade. Along with the description of the weapon Owen also juxtaposes the loss of innocence that prevailed during the time of war. In the poem sonnet On Seeing a Piece of Our Heavy Artillery brought into consummation Owen portrays weapons as an object that has to be paid respect to, this is shown by the words thou, thee.He kick upstairsmore goes on to personify the guns by saying that he slowly lifted thou long black arm and also describes the destruction that they eventually cause. The four poems have a lot of literary devices packed into them such as well-grounded imagery, metaphors and embodiment which compliment his description of the weapons. World War 1 was the war that changed history. The use of mechanised weapons on an unsuspecting enemy proven to be the biggest challenge. Earlier war was seen as something glorious and evenchivalrous. World War 1 overturned that view, the senseless bloodshed, the ruthless use of weapons made this war anything but glorious. Owen was one such soldier who first hand experienced the horrors of war and unlike poets before him conveyed the reality of war. He and a few others were submissive in ripping the faade of the honour and glory that war claims to be. His poems are raw, undisguised versions of the harsh reality of what was occurring in the trenches of the Western Front. Wilfred Owen uses a significant standard of literary dev ices to convey how weapons play a large role in warfare.His poem the Last Laugh begins with an expletive, Oh Jesus Christ Im complete the title itself is rich in irony as the poem goes on to depict how the weapons that are personified chuckle and guffaw at the soldiers death. Lines like the bullets chirped, machine guns chuckledand the Big Gun guffawed reveal the dark humour that underlies the poem. The use of onomatopoeia adds to the chilling darkness of the imagery, tut tut and the way the splinter spat and tittered are evidence of this. His use of alliteration enhances the poetic tempo. The lofty Shrapnel is personified as it gestures leisurely at the dying man calling him fool. Weapons are further personified as grim, hostile entities. The Bayonets have long teeth and grinned as ravels of shells hoot and groan and gas hisses. The use of capital letters to classify the weapons further draws attention to their significance, in this case as purveyors of destruction. In Arms and th e Boy, Owen depicts how innocence is destroyed by war. The title itself seems like an oxymoron because children are usually not associated with weapons.The poem begins with a calm suggestion of letting the boy try the bayonet blade and see how cold the steel is The bayonet itself is personified as a creature with a predatory nature, its keen with starve of blood its appetite is further described as famishing for flesh this use of alliteration of fricative sounds embellishes the rapacious nature of the weapon, it is described as being deplorable with all malice, like a madmans flash this simile conveys the cruelty and evil that is associated with this weapon. By using explosive sounds and the use of adjectives such as cold increase the sinister effect of the weapon. The second stanza similarly begins with a tender gesture asking the young boy to stroke these blind abrupt bullet leads the use of consonanceadds to making the bullets seem less deadly than they are words such as long to nuzzle portray devotion but ironically the euphuism, in the hearts of lads stands for the death of young children.Cartridges are described as having fine zinc teeth, their sharpness is compared to the sharpness of grief and death in saying give him these weapons of destruction the poet is juxtaposing innocence with experience and death. Owen does so in a manner that seems innocuous asking the boy to play with these objects of death and destruction. The third stanza his teeth seemed for laughing round an apple conveys the idea of childish innocence. The young boy does not have fangs nor claws behind his fingers supple. Furthermore Owen writes beau ideal will grow no talons at his heels or antlers finished the thickness of his curls. This conveys that God had not meant for man to be like a beast. Man unavoidably to arm himself with weapons to don the mantle of a predator. In showing the young boy through the thickness of his curls further implies how angelic and innocent he is . Owen is bereaved person that he will one day pick up the weapons of destruction and will thus be robbed of his innocence. Owen uses many literary devices such as personification to depict the weapons he says the cartridges have fine zinc teeth and the bayonet is described as being keen with hunger of blood. The poet alludes to Virgils epic the Aeneid of arms and the man I sing.The poem itself uses half rhyme and alliteration famishing for flesh, blind blunt bullet leads to convey the bank bill of the poem which is largely sinister. In his poem Anthem for doomed youth Owen takes the theme of how weapons destroy one step further. Here to the imagery is stark and the poem begins with sound imagery, what passing bells for these who die as cattle? The reference to cattle further shows the diminished emotion that war instils in humans. Soldiers are equated to cattle and the death knells are merely in passing. Written as a Petrarchan sonnet with a ABA rhyme scheme Anthem for doomed you th vividly demolishes the myth of soldiers being valiant of glorious in battle. Here too weapons are personified guns are shown as having monstrous anger and the stuttering ripples rapid rattle The use of alliteration further enhances the sound imagery as the reader is transported back in time. Words such as stuttering and patter convey a sense of grief and hesitation. in that respect is no one to grieve for those who havedied, no mockeries now for themnor any voice of morning save the choirs and these choirs are that of the shrill demented, wailing shells by using words such as wailing and mourning Owen is trying to depict the harsh reality that the soldiers had to face. There is neither fanfare nor celebration and bugles call for them from lamentable shires the soldiers are portrayed as the forgotten, remembered only in the pallor of girls brows And in the tenderness of patient minds. Owen juxtaposes very interestingly the two themes of trust with war. The imagery of candles and flowers are harshly juxtaposed against that of death and pain. His use of mild innocuous language contrasts sharply with the violence of the action depicted. The two stanzas are starkly different as the first vividly describes the horror of war and the second the hope of the families left behind waiting for fathers, brothers, sons to return.The disillusionment and bitterness is illumined in this poem. The tone is contrite and bitter and a sense of irony pervades the poem. Written as a eulogy the heading conveys the theme perfectly, it is truly an Anthem for the youth who are doomed to die in a war that made no sense. In the Sonnet that Owen wrote he describes the weapons initially as an object those posses majestic qualities. He praises the gun by calling it Great which shows his respect for this artillery. He furthermore shows the Gun towering towards heaven which shows that the gun is about to attack God himself, enactment the amount of power that it posses. He personifies the g un and lifted its long black arm. He also describes the canon as a weapon that protects its soldiers as well as kills. Throughout this poem he admires the weapons but the last two lines reveal his true perception of artillery.Harsh words such as cut thee from our soul shows the level of resentment that he has against weapons as he also asks God to curse thee. The title itself is absurd as a Sonnet is a poem that is addressed to a lover however he uses it differently and uses it to both praise the weapons as well as criticise them. exclusively of Wilfred Owens poems are bound by the sense of irony. His poems resound with pathos. He truly conveys the pity of war and doesnt seek to elevate it as poets in the foregone did. His poems are stark snippets of reality as were experienced by young soldiers in trenches. The horror, the infestation the overpowering stench of war is all beautifully conveyed through his poetry. His poetry does not want to glossover reality it is reality.