The Delusive Glory Of War Essay, Research Paper

Many of the immature officers who fought in the Great War enlisted in the

ground forces with glowing enthusiasm, believing that war was played in fancy

uniforms with glistening blades. They considered war as a baronial undertaking, an

ebullient journey filled with award and glorification. Yet, after a short period on

the forepart, they discovered that they had been disillusioned by the war:

contending earned them nil but hopelessness, decease and panic. They

had lost their lives to the lost cause of war, which besides killed their

artlessness and young person. They were no longer male childs but indurate work forces. Wilfred

Owen? s verse form? Dulce et Decorum Est? , Pat Barker? s fresh Regeneration, and

Erich Maria Remarque? s All Quiet on the Western Front, all portray the

sarcasm between the false glorification of war and the ghastly world of it,

but whereas Owen and Sassoon treat the subject from a British point of

position, Remarque allows us to look at it from the enemy & # 8217 ; s.

The verse form? Dulce et Decorum Est? , an anti-war verse form by Wilfred Owen who

was an English footsoldier, states that it is non sweet and adjustment to

decease a hero? s decease for a state. Right off in the first line, Owen

describes the military personnels as being? like old mendicants under pokes? ( 1 ) . This

metaphor indicates that the work forces are conflict weary and suggests reluctance.

They besides have been on their pess for yearss and look to be drained of

young person as they? marched asleep? ( 5 ) and? limped on, blood-shod? ( 6 ) .

Overall, in the first stanza,

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at that place seems to be a tenseness between old and immature because it shows how

the impact of an eternal war has reduced these one time energetic immature work forces

to the point where they could be referred to as? old? ( 1 ) , ? square? ( 6 )

and? rummy with weariness? ( 7 ) . In the 2nd stanza and at the beginning

of the 3rd, Owen makes a ghastly portraiture of a gas onslaught that

distressingly expresses despair, agony, and impotence. He uses? An

rapture of groping? ( 9 ) to depict the work forces hold oning for their gas

masks during the onslaught. The fact that? ecstasy? is used with? groping?

is surprising and upseting but suggests the difference between the

society? s beliefs about the war and the actuality of it. Images such as

? flound? pealing like a adult male in fire or calcium hydroxide? ? ( 12 ) , ? He plunges at me,

guttering, choking, drowning. ? ( 16 ) , ? His hanging face, like a Satan? s sick

of wickedness? ( 20 ) , ? Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs? ( 22 ) cast

the hurting of war and decease into the readers face. By the terminal of the

3rd and last stanza, the sarcasm of the rubric has wholly unfolded:

My friend, you would non state with such high gusto

To kids ardent for some despairing glorification,

The old prevarication: Dulce et decorousness Eastern Time

Pro patria mori. ( 25-29 )

Through graphic imagination and compelling metaphors, Owen wants people to

halt lying about how? sweet? and? suiting? it is? to decease for one? s

state? .

Pat Barker & # 8217 ; s 1991 novel, Regeneration, represents her

fictional-historical history of Rivers & # 8217 ; intervention of the war poet Siegfried Sassoon. The

novel? s anti-war message is really clear and good argued from Barker? s

point of position because by stressing on war and lunacy she shows us how

the heads of her characters were damaged by the war.

The novel begins with Sassoon? s missive of surrender: ? I am a

soldier, convinced that I am moving on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this

war, upon which I entered as a war of defense mechanism and release, has now

go a war of agg

ression and conquering? ( 3 ) . Here, the altering signifier of

war is described through the eyes of one soldier talking out for many

others. The soldiers expected a war where they would contend for their

state? s benefit. Alternatively, they entered a war where the intent of their

forfeits was finally forgotten and mindless slaughter was

? intentionally prolonged? . Besides, the usage of this missive at the beginning

suggests that the subject of the soldiers? disenchantment would often be

discussed throughout the novel. In the development of the narrative, a

important alteration in Rivers? head and sentiment can be noticed:

Rivers was cognizant, as a changeless background to his work, of a struggle

between his belief that the war must be fought to a coating, for the interest

of the succeeding coevalss, and his horror that such events as those

which had led to Burns? s dislocation should be allowed to go on. ( 47 )

Rivers was an Englishman of his category and coevals: he considered it

a necessary war that should be fought to a triumph, though he was

shocked by the horror stories that would bit by bit do him doubt that possibly

he had been disillusioned about war excessively. Barker? s manner of come ining a

historical figure? s head and analyzing his ideas helps the reader

understand more deeply the significance of the war and its awful

effects.

In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque illustrates

the graphic horror and natural nature of war and attempts to alter the popular

belief that war is an idealistic character. At the beginning of the

novel, we notice, as in? Dolce et Decorum Est? , that there is a tenseness between immature and old. When Kantorek

calls Paul and his friends Germany? s Fe young person, Paul responds: ? Yes,

that? s what they think, these hundred thousand Kantoreks! Iron young person! Young person!

We are none of us more than twenty old ages old. But immature? Young person? That is

long ago. We are old folk. ? ( 18 ) . Paul? s response suggests that the

male childs are so tired and have been through so much horror that their young person

has been wholly destroyed. Besides, a really affecting transition that

portrays the subject of the book rather good is when Paul attacks the romantic

ideals of war:

I am immature, I am 20 old ages old ; yet I know nil of life but

desperation, decease, fright, and asinine shallowness dramatis personae over an abysm of

sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence,

unwittingly, unwisely, yieldingly, innocently slay one another. I see that

the keenest encephalons of the universe invent arms and words to do it yet

more refined and digesting. ( 263 )

Paul? s strong words, demonstrated through the writer? s endowment, are

denouncing the authorization figures who were supposed to steer his coevals

into maturity but alternatively turned the young person against each other in the

chase of superficial ideals. The soldiers were merely the victims of a

nonmeaningful war.

In decision, Remarque? s firsthand brushs with trench warfare,

Owen? s graphic descriptions of the soldiers? experiences and Baker? s

touching histories of the lives of historical figures, all province that there

were no masters in war, merely losers in a hopeless conflict for territorial

domination.

Plants Cited

Barker, Pat. Regeneration. Toronto: Plume, 1993.

Owen, Wilfred. ? Dulce et Decorum Est. ? The Faber Book of War Poetry.

Ed. Kenneth Baker. London: Faber, 1997. 3-4.

Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. Trans. A. W.

Wheen. New York: Ballantine, 1982.