Robert Graves and Escape

In Escape, we see Robert Graves's true feelings come to light. We see an AABB rhyming scheme, which helps us to understand the feelings that Graves is trying to show in the poem. It shows that he is trying to make the poem a little bit more readable, and flow more off the tongue, to contrast the terrifying imagery of the poem itself.


This terrifying imagery is added to through the use of mythological diction, including terms such as "Lady Proserphine' and 'Cerberus'. These are terms that typically are found in Greek mythology and relate to the realm of Hades, the god of Death. This shows what the main theme of the poem is, and also what the main idea of the poem is. The main theme is that of the ever-presence of death, and the main idea is that Graves is escaping death's grip on him.

Along with the blatant religious metaphor, we see some allusion to Grave's real life after his injury. We see what was going on in his mind when he was injured in the war. He believed that he was going to die, and this poem chronicles what he believes he saw in that time, although in a probably fictionalised manner. We see mention of Graves thinking that Cerberus is an enemy, and that he tries to shoot him. W then also see the use of the "all-powerful poppy", which is a relation to morphine, a powerful painkiller. The sentence where Graves references the morphine seems to bring the poem back to reality, if only for an instant, which helps the poem to carry more weight.

What also adds to this weight is the first two lines of the poem, which mentions the actual death of Graves. These first two lines make it seem as if Graves is writing from beyond the grave, and that again adds a layer of terror and weight to the poem. Overall, it seems as if this is the whole point of the poem. Graves is showing how terrifying it is to believe that you are dying, and shows this to us in a way that seems very real and poignant. This is done to warn that war is not all fun and games, and that it can utterly terrify you and leave you scared beyond all imagination.

Comparison of 'Dulce et Decorum est' and 'Anthem for Doomed Youth'

Wilfred Owen's, "Anthem for a Doomed Youth" and "Dulce and Decorum Est" both convey a message of disgust about the horror of war through the use of painfully direct language and intense vocabulary. The reader can appreciate at the end of both of Owen's poems the irony between the truth of what happens at war and the lie that was being told to the people at home.
Wilfred Owen's, "Anthem for a Doomed Youth" and "Dulce and Decorum Est"
both convey a message of disgust about the horror of war through the use of painfully
direct language and intense vocabulary. The reader can appreciate at the end of both of
Owen's poems the irony between the truth of what happens at war and the lie that was
being told to the people at home. Although the tones of the two poems are slightly different, the common theme of brutality and devastation at war is unmistakable, and
through each poem Owen creates a lasting and disturbing impression on his reader.
In contrast to the spiritual and religious images of "Anthem", the tone of "Dulce
and Decorum Est" is significantly more violent and gruesome. Although Owen's
objective is once again to denounce and condemn the devastation and senselessness of
war in a world that believed it was a romantic occupation, he does this in a much more
powerful way through this poem. Owen does
not write about a glorified version of the life of a soldier, but rather paints a realistic view
of the sorrow, violence and devastation faced by these soldiers. Throughout this poem
the reader senses the agony and pain that these soldiers experienced and the horrible
tragedies that they encountered.
In spite of the differences with regard to tone in each of these poems, it is clear to
the reader that Owen's objective in each poem was to illustrate the terrible actuality of
war through vivid imagery. Owen himself was a soldier during World War
I and experienced first-hand the intensity and ruthlessness of war and he believed it was
his duty through poetry to denounce the war for what it really was- a festering evil of
which no good could come. In each of these poems, Owen conveys a message of disgust
about the horror of war to an ill-informed audience of smug Englishmen. Many people
believed it was sweet and fitting to die for one's country, but Owen suggests that this was
a lie. Through the vivid imagery and intense language used in each of these poems Owen
condemns the devastation of war and proves that the innocence of boyhood is lost in the
chaos and tragedy of war.

Before the Mirror and Greater Love Comparison

In both of these poems, we see the discussion of grief and loss. On one hand, Greater Love talks about the loss of soldiers and brothers-in-arms, but in Before The Mirror, we see one man grieving about the loss of his sister. Both of these are very poignant forms of grief, but they are shown in very similar ways.

The first stanza of Greater Love mirrors the first stanza of Before The Mirror, in that it talks about how an object is not as colourful as it would normally be. Before the Mirror takes a darker, more mournful tone about it, which is shown through majorly dark and tense diction, including words such as 'grief' and 'fright'. There is also a lot of cold diction, which I believe relates to the emotions of the speaker in Before The Mirror, which seems to be about a man who has lost his sister. This is again shown through the use of words such as 'wind, weary and snow', which helps to create the image of a bleak winter, which is typically the season of mourning.

This once again contrasts Greater Love, which glorifies the deaths of the soldiers, and makes it seem as if they died doing what they felt was right. The soldiers are shown as 'fierce', and 'pure', which are honorifics that typically make somebody seem as if they are heroes. Greater Love shows death in a completely different light than Before The Mirror. Greater Love glorifies it, while Before The Mirror mourns it.

One difference is that there is two completely different reasons for the deaths, which might also lead to the differences in emotions towards the fallen. In Before The Mirror, the death seems to be natural, and the speaker is shown as being completely distraught, while in Greater Love, the deaths are in battle, which seems to help glorify the deaths and make the soldiers seem that much more heroic.

The language used to describe death itself in the poems in rather similar as well, and you can sense that Owen took some inspiration from Swinburne. For example, both poems use words such as 'forbidden' and 'harsh', to show the affects of death on love, which shows the feelings that both poems have towards the subject.

My classmate Georgia mentions that Greater Love is a mockery of Before The Mirror, which I completly disagree with. I believe that Greater Love is a hommage to Before The Mirror, and that Owen is expressing his love for that poem in parodying it in this. Owen supposedly had a great love of poetry, and so it is easy to understand why he would reference a favourite poem in his, as mimicry is the ultimate form of flattery.

One final thing about the poems is the themes. In Before The Mirror, we see one mans reflections on the death of one person very important to him. He mourns that one person and feels awful about how it is affecting him. This is mirrored in Greater Love, on a macro scale. In Greater Love, Owen is commenting on the massive scale of love that is talked about in Greater Love, which mentions that generality of love felt for soldiers by the people fighting at home. This talks about the almost nationalistic feeling of pride that people have towards the men fighting for their countries.

Analysis of Wilfred Owen's Greater Love

Greater Love is a poem in which Wilfred Owen expresses his admiration for brotherly love. Soldiers' love is repeatedly glorified with honorifc words like "fierce","pure", "exquitsite" who evidently suffered and sacrificed their lives for their countrymen. Yet, Owen criticisizes the countrymen for their disability to understand this kind of sacrificial love and "touch them not". Due to their lack of experience and exposure, society will never understand by just knowing and reading about soldiers' love.

The soldiers' love is seen to be "greater" than erotic love. The soldiers' love, in fact, is compared to Christ's agape love for sinners. similarly, soldiers sacrificed their lives for ignorant society. Hence, compared to erotic love, brotherly love suffered more killings and injuries like "knife-skewed" and "stained stones". Yet, the conflict and sacrifices faced by soldiers made their love more "greater" in beauty and more real. even erotic love "seems shame to their love pure". Ironically, even if erotic love is more gentle and "dear", violence, fighting and killing invited by soldiers' love - still raised Owen's qualification of this love as "greater". Irony is that violence could be the strong bond of sufferings shared by soldiers and thus, made this love "greater".
Since brotherly love carries violence, their love is seen to be ugly and gruelsome. yet, despite the overwhelming beauty and exquisitness of erotic love, brotherly love is honored by Owen as more "greater". this is because erotic love only brings pleasure and hopes for return but brotherly love sacrificed their lives without question for countrymen. worse still, for people who are ignorant.
There are several comparison made by Owen between erotic love and brotherly love. the differences which set these two kinds of love apart is attraction/lure (Verse 1), physical connection (Verse 2), sounds (Verse 3), and sincerity, which (Verse 4)  compares and contrast to bring forth the question of the permanance and sincerity of erotic love. to emphasize that, Owen introduces eortic love as weak and temporary with feminine words, in contrast to brotherly love which is portrayed as strong ad everlasting with masculine words.

Lastly, despite soldiers' love being more "greater" and beautiful, Owen criticises society for not being to understand. Society not only do not care, they failed to experience and be exposed to the same sufferings of war which formed the agape love of soldiers for their countrymen, for their comrades and for their country. Owen brings readers to understand that even if they were to read the poem and know about the sacrificial love of soldiers, they'll not truly understand. it is not sufficient to just know about their plight but also to experience and share their sufferings to truly understand. in addition, by saying so, Owen reveals that brotherly love is so great that it couldn't be truly expressed in just printed words.

Repression of War Experience

The poem has no apparent rhythm or rhyme scheme, or any regularity of the stanzas - it appears to be an invective of thoughts which build up to madness, even admitting this at the endof the poem, in which you can see glimpses of conflict between his own feelings about the war and the propaganda that was pumped into recruits at the time that sends him into a kind of frenzy. The structure perhaps reflects the way in which some soldiers were driven to madness through these conflicts - their own attitudes of indignation at the injustice and complete insanity of war crushed and squashed  by the general consensus that 'war is glorious' and 'you're not a man if you don't fight', a way of thinking that Sassoon was well known for having.

  Sassoon portrays the insanity of war in a variety of ways. One technique is through analogy - the moths are described as 'silly beggars' to 'scorch their wings with glory, liquid flame', a distinct parallel to soldiers who are attracted to the fame and glory of war, only to be 'scorched' when it's too late. The war was hyped up to be a big glorious parade, but the very image of glory is shattered as soon as the soldiers realise what war really is: a tragic, futile bloodbath which they have no means to escape.


As we proceed further through the poem we see Sassoon after the war in his home And he can't even enjoy the 'jolly company' of books, he can't ever escape from the horror of the war experience even through literature. The madness seems to return again through the way Sassoon describes the books - 'dressed in dim black, and black, and white, and green/and every kind of colour. Which will you read?' It's almost as if he's talking to his inner child, the child that was so pure before war corrupted it...and now he can never enjoy the carefree pleasure of a book. He can only 'sit and gnaw your nails', again, the war experience never leaving him, the constant nervousness and terror even when he's at home, 'summering safe'. Every little thing reminds him of the war, the moth again, the garden where he believes the ghosts are. Sassoon seems to feel some sort of resentment towards the people who died in the war. The ghosts he describes didn't have the luxury of a quick bullet to the head, instead, like him, they had to suffer 'slow, natural deaths'. It is almost as if Sassoon wishes he had died in war, rather than carrying the burden of an 'ugly soul' - the fact that he had committed so many 'nasty sins' throughout the war and seen so much suffering remains with him as he continues to live his life. Although it's not really much of a life, his life right now is really a 'slow natural death' as he can't live properly anymore. He can't take any pleasure in life, he seems to be merely dying slowly as the days go by.

And in the last stanza of the poem there is still the echo of the guns in his mind, 'they never cease'. He can still hear them many years after, tormenting him so much to the extent that he 'wants to go out/And screech at them to stop'. The final sibilance of 'stark, staring mad' really shows the extent to which this soldier has been pushed - he will never be the same man again as the horror of war continues to vex him.

Bough of Nonsense Analysis.

To understand this rather confusing poem, I first had to figure out what style of poem it was written in the style of an idyll, which typically describes rustic life, in the style of the Idylls by Theocritus.
According to the research that I did, Theocritus describes initmate scenes from everyday life.

Upon finding this out, I could understand the poem a little more. It doesn't talk about actual war, but the results of it. They discuss how the war affected them. Only one of the characters is named, Robert, the other is un-named, and simply called S. The poem is written using their dialogue, and can be interpretted as a dialogue between Robert and another friend of his, possibly Sassoon, based on the way he talks and the letter his character starts with.

The character, S, mentions that he has lived three thousand years, and that he is now nine-parts dead, which may be a hint at the massive amounts of people that died during the first World War. S seems to be the elder of the characters in the poem, and seems to carry the conversation, with Robert looking up to him. The character do confuse me, however, as the language they use is very fantastical and their language at certain points seems to be coming from the same character perspective.

Finally, the poems theme seems to be that war is totally nonsense, which is portrayed through the nonsense that the character talk about. They stay away from mentioning anything to do with the war, and talk about things that don't have any place in the contemporary society. It reaches a new profoundness at the line 'we all worship nonsense', which I believe talks about the materialistic nature of societies. Once again, it is difficult to properly analyse the poem, due to the confusing nature of the language used, but it is an interesting poem.

The Top 10 Reason for Being Bill

10. You fly solo
9. You can hold your liquor
8. You just don’t give a shit
7. You’re adventurous by nature
6. You’re a tough guy with a soft heart
5. You always have a snappy comeback
4. You don’t pull your punches
3. You show your true colors to true men
2. You have a razor sharp wit
1. Everybody likes you
 

Bulls And Steers

A major theme of the Sun Also Rises is the constant reference of bulls and steers. These terms are used as a symbol of Jake and his group of friends. Throughout the novel, we see different references to the intertwining relationships of the group, and each persons character. We also see occasions of the group appearing to take charge of their current situations, and others where they simply take it.

To understand the use of bulls and steers, really we need to analyse what those two terms mean. Firstly, a bull is a creature of immense hello James i guess you didn't see this power, that is well known for its ability for causing carnage. An example of this is the famous idiom, "A bull in a china shop". Bulls are also known for being symbols of strength and being representative of mental strength. On the other hand, a steer is a bull that has been castrated, to prevent him from becoming aggressive, and to make him easily controllable.

In another essay that we read by Hemingway about bullfighting, it is shown that bulls and steers have very different personalities. The bulls are shown as being very aggressive towards the steers, and being very domineering over them as well. The steers are shown as taking the pain and damage, and letting the bulls treat them awfully. However, when the bulls and steers are together in a group, they are shown as pacifying the bulls.

From these examples, we can begin to see what some examples of bulls and steers are in the novel. If you look at Jake, he is constantly shown as being trampled over by the other members of his group. He is shown as not really caring what happens to him, which is a typical feature of the literal animal of a steer. His war wound also is a parallel to the castration of the steer.

An example of a bull in the novel is Mike. Mike is very aggressive, and prides himself on his masculinity and his power. He is constantly shown as being the leader or one of the co-leaders of the group. He is rather the epitome of a powerful man, although he is shown as having a weak personality, something that we grow to also expect from the ultra-masculine through the novel.

On the other hand, the bulls and steers can also be seen to show sexuality. That is why Cohn and Jake are shown as the major steers of the novel. Jake is castrated, which limits him sexually, and Cohn lets women dominate him, and allows them to get the better of him, which is something that Hemingway wouldn't have agreed with. One example of a bull is Brett, who is very dominant of the group, as she controls both Jake and Cohn, making them follow her around like pariahs.