Compare How the Poets Express Their Perspective free essay sample

By the sun being personified as kind and old it creates an image in the readers mind of someone who will help their friend and they imagine that the sun will help bring their comrade back from near death. However, by the sun being personified as old it can suggest to the reader that the sun cannot help their friend, as older people are often unable to help others because they have to look after themselves. In front of this background the act of war and killing seems ridiculous. Mametz Wood also includes personification, and Sheers uses it to personify the Earth as a watchful guardian now the Earth stands sentinel. However, sentinel could also mean that the Earth is watching the human race to see if we are going to do more damage to it. Juxtaposition is used in Mametz Wood to show how disturbed Owen Sheers was. The socketed heads tilted back at an angle suggests that the soldiers could be laughing as their heads we tilted back, although it can show the violent death of the soldiers by their necks being broken, which causes them to die. We will write a custom essay sample on Compare How the Poets Express Their Perspective or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page This shows the disturbance that has been created in Owen Sheers’ mind, and therefore it makes the reader to feel disturbed as well. Futility uses an oxymoron, woke once the clays of a cold star, to show Owens perspective that conflict is futile. Cold star is relating to the Earth however, a star is a ball of hot rock and therefore it cannot be cold. By using the oxymoron, Owen is saying the sun once woke up the Earth, so the sun can wake up his comrade. Mametz Wood shows another of Sheers’ perspective on conflict which is how he thinks war/conflict is futile and brutal. It is clear from the first stanza through the connotations of words that by calling the soldiers the wasted young Sheers thinks war is futile as he describes the dead soldiers as wasted. The use of wasted shows how Sheers thought the soldiers were innocent people whose lives were wasted by fighting in war. The connotations of certain words in â€Å"Futility† also show how Owen perceives conflict as pointless. The words sun connotes warmth and life, and is the center of the poem as the sun wakes up the Earth; however it is not waking up the injured comrade. In the last stanza, the word sleep is contrasted with words that mean wake such as woke. The connotations of words are important because they show how Owen thinks that war is pointless. The poet’s perspectives can be shown through structure and the use of the title. The title of Futility adds to Wilfred Owens perspective of conflict as Futility means pointless, so Owen is showing how he thinks war is pointless and worthless. The title of â€Å"Mametz Wood† is considered to be ironic because the â€Å"wood† is where all of the dead soldiers have been buried, so in a way the â€Å"wood† is a mass grave. Owen Sheers begins Mametz Wood off in the past tense which shows how the horror is still present in the lives of the people, and it also forces the reader to acknowledge what the discovery of the bones means. I think this shows how the past events are still being made aware of the present. â€Å"Futility opens with an instruction move him into the sun- and it is in the present tense, making the poem relevant and immediate. In the last stanza of Futility, the poem ends with a series of rhetorical questions full nerved, still warm, too hard to stir? Was it for this the clay grew tall? which shows that Owen was challenging the whole concept of war and is questioning himself. By questioning himself, Wilfred Owen impacts the reader by making them think about the answers to the questions asked. Rhetorical questions express how Owen perceives conflict as pointless. Punctuation in both poems is used to draw the readers attention to a certain point the poets are trying to make. Hyphens are used in both Futility and Mametz Wood to signal a pause for the readers to think. Mametz Wood uses a hyphen in the line for years afterwards the farmers found them - to let the reader pause and question who them refers to which expresses how Sheers perceives conflict as brutal, because it is clear that many young soldiers died fighting. In â€Å"Futility†, hyphens are also used to let the reader pause and think about what message Owen was trying convey, and they were used on the first line of both stanzas â€Å"move him into the sun -† and â€Å"think how it wakes the seeds –â€Å". Owen uses half rhymes through Futility which give a disconcerting tone to the poem, sun/sown and once/France show this. The use of the half rhymes shows how Owen expresses his perspective that conflict is wrong. Mametz Wood only has two cases of rhyme, the rhyming of gun and run in the third stanza, and in the last stanza sung and tongues. The only two uses of rhyme could suggest that Sheers has had an epiphany at that moment in time. Through this, the reader discovers Sheers perception of conflict which is how he felt disturbed. In conclusion, both poems clearly express the perspective of the poets through lots of different techniques. I personally believe that Futility is more successful in expressing how Owen perceives conflict as futile, however, Mametz Wood creates powerful images that display the brutality of conflict and how Sheers views conflict as brutal.