IntroductionMy report explores the horrors of war through a range of war poems examining the dehumanization of young soldiers during the First World War and how war affects their families and society. The poems I chose to use were Anthem for Doomed Youth, by Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est, also by Wilfred Owen, Attack, written by Siegfried Sassoon, and Reservist, written by Boey Kim Cheng. I felt that the four poems chosen contained enough evidence to discuss the dehumanization of soldiers who fought in World War I and how the war affected their families and society. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayWilfred Owen presents the dehumanization of young soldiers in the meat grinder of the Western Front by sharing his war experiences, to challenge the patriotic state of mind of society. After analyzing the poem, I discovered that Owen used a range of linguistic features to describe the dehumanization of war. Owen begins the poem with a rhetorical question: “What bells for those who die like cattle? » What Owen is referring to here is the fact that the parish church bells which were used to mourn the dead are absolutely absent on the battlefield and that in place of the bells, the only sound which gives leave to soldiers is the “stuttering of guns”. quick rattle.” The simile also compares the death of soldiers to the death of cattle, as it shows that the soldiers are trapped at the mercy of others – like in a slaughterhouse – indicating that there is not much hope of escape death. Owen then asks the reader, “What candles can be held to speed them all up?” / Not in the hands of the boys, but in their eyes / The holy lights of farewell will shine.” This is ironic because we know there will be no formal funeral for the soldiers and there will be no candles, just the sky lit up garishly by explosives. Generally, people who die outside of war receive a proper sendoff. with a formal funeral service, which many would expect to be a basic human right. However, in the meat grinder of the Western Front, it is quite the opposite. Owen uses the contrast between the soldiers' glorious expectations and reality, and allows the reader to ask: why are we sending young men to the battlefield when they still have too much to live for? What Owen wants us to understand here is that these were ordinary young men who had more reason to live than to die on the battlefield where they would be forgotten, and that war is not not like how Jessie Pope (one of the leading poets who glorified war) portrayed it - glorious and heroic. It is still quite common to see the dehumanization of soldiers today, in countries like North Korea, where their soldiers are deprived of basic human rights such as the right to have enough food and the right to be free. The poem Attack, written by Siegfried Sassoon, differs slightly because it does not use irony to display the dehumanization of the soldiers. Sassoon instead chooses to display the message as clearly as possible in order to maximize the effect it has on the reader. However, Owen and Sassoon challenge the gung-ho, gung-ho view of war and expose the horrors of war. Sassoon begins by setting the scene with the "wild purple of the shining sun" using a calm tone, however, in thenext line, the tone changes as he begins to describe the battlefield above the mountain. Towards the end, he begins to describe the emotions of his comrades: “gray faces, muttering, masked by fear”. What Sassoon eludes to here is the fact that these young soldiers eventually became aware of the horrors of war behind the facade created by Pope and Horace. Sassoon ends the poem with the striking metaphor: “Flounders in the mud. Oh Jesus, make this stop.” Sassoon wants us to understand that sending young men to war is essentially committing suicide, as once-enthusiastic soldiers have not resorted to it, crying and begging for the torture to stop. The Sassoon Attack highlights the fact that these young men are going to war and risking their lives, but their country is not willing to reciprocate by giving them the right to die with dignity. Owen's most famous poem, Dulce et Decorum Est, is similar to Anthem for Doomed Youth in that he shares his war experiences, to challenge the fact that war is glorious and heroic. It is also similar to Anthem for Doomed Youth as it also has an ironic tone throughout the poem. The title of the poem, which in Latin means "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country", is ironic because it is the complete opposite of what the poem is actually about, thus maximizing the effect it has on the reader. Owen explains how in the poem the soldiers “limped, shod with blood…drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the howls / Gas shells falling gently behind. The use of the words "drunk" and "deaf" indicates that soldiers were forbidden to sleep and in some cases even for a few days, in case the enemy attacked them. Owen could also be referring to the fact that they were mentally fatigued as many soldiers would sit silently for hours, waiting for the enemy to strike. The use of the word "shod in blood" also helps to further reinforce the zombie nature of the soldiers, as it shows that the soldiers wore blood-soaked shoes but nevertheless continued to endure pain, in order to "protect" the soldiers. country. However, what the soldiers do not realize is that the country is not willing to do the same for them, providing them with a dignified funeral if they die, as the propaganda Horace had promised them. and Pope broadcast to encourage young adults to join them. the Army. The juxtaposition that Owen creates between the glorified title and the living conditions of the exhausted soldiers helps expose the false image of a dignified and glorious war. Like Owen's "Hymn of Doomed Youth" and Sassoon's "Attack," Owen's most famous poem, "Dulce et Decorum Est" also contains the same dehumanizing message throughout the poem: the soldiers are are denied the right to die with dignity by their country. Boey Kim Cheng's poem Reservist mocks the practice of military training that all men undergo in Singapore for a total of two years, until the age of forty, to prepare for a metaphorical war. Cheng compares training to medieval warfare through the use of medieval dictions such as “joust,” “fanfare,” and “bugle.” Through the use of these words and the opening phrase: "It is time again for the annual joust, for the regular war," we see that Cheng finds the practice of compulsory training unnecessary - as Don Quixote swinging his sword at the windmills, thinking it was some kind of Using the negatively charged tone in the quote, Cheng speaks for many Singaporeans to tell us that the annual training is not worth it difficulty, because they “climb the same hills [and] advance.