war poem

How did poems convey the first world war?

Wilfred Owen and Wills Hall covey war in their own way adapting to the time and circumstances to put across the horror and brutal reality of war.

The two texts I am going to refer to, to show this are “The long and the short and the tall” by Wills Hall and "Dulce et decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen.

Wilfred Owen writes his poetry to get over the trauma of the experience. He has (like many other poets) the burning desire to get the horror of the war across to other people.

“Dulce et Decorum Est” means “It’s a sweet and honourable thing to die for your country”. The poem is about a group of men leaving the trenches for days of rest. While on their way back they get gassed.

The poem is split into two sections, the first is describing the incident and the second is his reaction towards the whole thing. The poem is conveyed in a very surreal and nightmarish way.

The poem opens with two similes which are used to really drill into the readers head how utterly exhausted these men are. He uses the line “drunk with fatigue”, this you can really imagine. It’s a word which people can relate to. If someone was drunk they would be staggering around, unbalanced, dizzy. This was the condition of the men purely endorsed by exhaustion.

The second paragraph opens with direct speech. This makes it more dramatic and adds the feeling of reality to the poem. It then goes on using very descriptive words mixed with a simile “like a man in fire or lime”. This creates the image of the man burning. It enables the reader to create a picture in their head of a man being burnt alive. This makes the reader fully aware of the brutal horror of war. The closing line is a simile and a metaphor joined together “As under a green sea, I saw him drowning”. The green sea is referring to the gas and the idea of him drowning is yet another horrific way in which a person can die, that the reader can relate to.

To round off the first section of this poem he uses three short, sharp, descriptive words “gutting, choking, drowning”. This is to try to bring to life what is happening to these men.

The second section is the reaction towards this bloodcurdling incident. It begins in a very surreal way then rapidly turns to very in-depth gory descriptive detail, which couldn’t be more real to the people there or the reader. Wilfred Owen uses the simile “His hanging face”. This phrase gives the reader some idea of what has happened to this man, how the gas has devoured and destroyed this man with no remorse or mercy.

The next few lines he uses are almost “in your face”, it’s graphic detail of the incident, to try and convey war in the most realistic way possible.

“If you could hear at every jolt, the blood

Come gurgling from his froth corrupted lungs,

Bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues”

The cud is the mixture that a cow regurgitates, so it’s again the idea of the vile coming from his mouth.

The poem ends in a very sad way, which really makes you feel sorry for the men and feel their pain with them. Wilfred Owen deliberately makes the ending more realistic and upsetting by saying the “old lie”. This makes you wonder if the men really did believe.

“Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori”
It is a sweet and honourable thing to die for your country.

The Long and The Short and The Tall by Willis Hall

This is a play about war, it uses an incident in the Malayan Jungle during World War 11. It is designed to show the effect of war upon the people forced to become participants.

This play is not an antiwar play, but an attempt to convey the darker side of war to the audience.
The play is focused around a small platoon of men who are doing a routine area sweep behind enemy lines. The platoon end up in a small mud hut, with no way of reaching the base, because their radio is down. It’s a play which relies strongly on dialogue rather than actions. The men build up the fear and tension with words rather than visible actions. It is really trying to show the disagreeable but not deeply disturbing: The military takes men away from their families and throws them in the deep end, under the control of men who like to shout and bark orders.

During the play there is never an indication of the cause of the war or what the platoon are doing “The whole lot stinks to me, so what am I supposed to do”. The play seems to clearly develop in this way, it focuses on the men and their reactions towards their circumstances.

The characters are easily recognisable, there is a Scot, a Welshman, a Tynesider and a Cockney all with characteristics supposed to match their race. In the play there is a typical sergeant who likes to bark orders and make the men's life a living hell. This I feel is to bring something into the play that people can understand, recognise and relate to.

The different characters develop as the pressure and reality of the war starts to sink in. Banforth is clearly the laid back, cool joker of the group, who always has something to say. As the play develops he becomes agitated and almost nervous. This is clear when the group capture the Jap. Banforth treats him as if he were not human, maybe an animal, he begins to teach him tricks to pass the time.

Macleish is a bragging Scotsman who is worried about his brother. As the play develops I would say he was the one who kept his head the best, but still ended up fighting with Banforth.

Apart from the main characters we hear about the groups life outside the war. i.e. Evan's girl in Cardiff and Smith’s home life on the council estate. This gives depth and meaning to the play, it brings the characters to life and makes the audience realise that they are not just made up characters, that they have lives and families to go home to. Again I feel this brings a serious feeling of reality to the play.

All the men feel a great deal of remorse and sympathy when the Jap is executed. It might have been the first time they had seen a man die, this incident would have woken them up to the brutal reality of war.

This play has good theatrical qualities. The dramatic clashes between the men contrasted with the ever growing danger outside brings a unique quality to the play, which has led it to have an everlasting success.

The language of the play creates the feeling of war. The men use modern, realistic dialogue. The men talk using slang which brings the play to the level of the audience, and creates a more memorable experience for them.

Willis Hall was aiming to bring the darker, disagreeable but not deeply disturbing side of war to our attention. This aspect mixed with the harsh reality of war creates a sense of realism which people can relate to.

The way in which Hall builds up the characters, giving detail on their life outside of war and creating their own unique personalities forces the audience to get to know and become familiar with them. They even might like or dislike some of the characters. This in depth approach countered with the short ending of their deaths, I feel is the idea of futility. I think this was the underlying meaning of the play.