1999-English 1102
Second Place
Different Ranks Experiencing the Reality of War
By Heather Collins
Both Stephen Crane's "War is Kind" and Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" use vivid images, diction rich with connotation, similes, and metaphors to portray the irony between the idealized glory of war and the lurid reality of war. However, by looking at the different ways these elements are used in each poem, it is clear that the speakers in the two poems are soldiers who come from opposite ends of the spectrum of military ranks. One speaker is an officer and the other is a foot soldier. Each of the speakers/soldiers is dealing with the repercussions from his own realities of the horror of war based on his duty during the battle.
The speaker in "War is Kind" is an officer who grapples with his own conscience in an internal monologue. He is struggling with his feelings of guilt over leading younger soldiers into battle and his military responsibility to cover up the truth. One way of interpreting this poem is to consider that the officer is attending a traditional military funeral for one of his soldiers. This can be seen in the way the stanzas are set up in the poem. In the first, third, and fifth stanzas, the speaker appears to be consoling the weeping loved ones of a soldier who died in the war. This would normally be the job of an officer who leads a regiment into battle. Consoling the family members is a powerful tool for conveying the reality of war. Addressing loved ones of a deceased soldier illustrates the loss and suffering to be dealt with by those left behind. He speaks to a "maiden" (1), a "babe" (12), and a "mother" (23), thereby, conveying one of the most significant truths about war: it takes the lives of men who are loved and important in many different kinds of relationships. The irony in these stanzas is that while speaking the words "Do not weep" (4), the officer imagines using grotesque descriptions to explain to them the way their brave soldier died. The most vivid and shocking image used is when the speaker internally addresses the child and tells him that his "father tumbled in the yellow trenches, / Raged at his breast, gulped and died" (13-14). This is not something one would tell a child, especially when consoling him. The use of the word "trenches," which could be metaphors for graves, contributes to the implicit theme of a funeral setting. This contradiction between verbally comforting family members and internally giving them detailed descriptions of their loved one's death, shows the speaker's struggle with the idea that families and others typically hear the glossed-over story of the nobility of soldiers and the glory of war. This speaker is battling with his military duty of consoling the family members and with his conscience wanting to open their eyes to the fact that these men die gruesome and painful deaths.
The second and fourth stanzas particularly support the theory that the officer is at the funeral of a lower-ranking soldier whom he led into battle. In the second and fourth stanzas, the officer is reviewing his own thoughts during the time of the battle; this is an indication that he is struggling with the decisions he has made. At the beginning of the second stanza, he uses an image of the "Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment" (6) as he flashes back to the men marching into war. The word "Hoarse" carries the connotation of weariness as if the battle has been long and unsuccessful. He describes the soldiers who are in his regiment as "Little souls who thirst for fight" (7), using metonymy to indicate that the soldiers are young and ignorant to the danger they face. The use of "souls" to depict the soldiers is important. It shows that these young men have not yet lost their spirit for the fight. They have not been exposed to the tribulation that can break a man's hope and faith. He says, "The unexplained glory flies above them" (9). The officer uses this image of the United States flag to show the irony in their ignorance: they do not even understand what it is they are fighting for, yet they are willing to die for it. In the fourth stanza, he also describes the "Swift blazing flag of the regiment" (17). The mention of both flags is interesting because both the United States flag and the regiment flag would be displayed at a formal military funeral. He speaks of war as "the battle god" (10) and the battleground as "his kingdom / A field where a thousand corpses lie" (10-11). This metaphor shows that he knows his soldiers' lives will likely be claimed during the war. This "field" could also be interpreted as a metaphor for the cemetery where the officer stands in solemn reflection.
In war, leaders must often distance themselves from the enlisted rank soldiers in order to make strategic decisions without the influence of emotions. The speaker repeats in both the second and the fourth stanzas, "These men were born to drill and die" (8,19). This line is significant because it seems to be a thought that the speaker continually uses as a coping mechanism to deal with the guilt he feels about leading these men to their deaths. He uses this thought to depersonalize the men, to think of them as killing machines, not as someone's lover, father, or son. We can see that the officer is struggling with his moral issues when he says he must "Point for them the virtue of slaughter" (20). The word "virtue" means "moral excellence." Choosing to use "virtue" and pairing it with "slaughter" shows that he is not only contemplating his own morality but that he feels a great internal conflict because of his responsibility for the men's actions and the loss of their lives. This idea is reiterated in the next line when he says, "Make plain to them the excellence of killing" (21). Both lines 20 and 21 support the idea that this officer uses depersonalization of the men under his command as a coping mechanism to deal with his internal moral conflict and feelings of guilt. However, the officer shows that this personal distancing does not last long when he is faced with a "Mother whose heart hung humble as a button / On the bright splendid shroud of [her] son" (23-24). This simile shows that the officer sympathizes with the soldier's mother who feels as though her heart has been ripped out of her chest; her emotions are raw and vulnerable. These two lines can also be interpreted as a metaphor for a Purple Heart medal wherein the "bright splendid shroud" would be the soldiers decorated uniform on which it is pinned. The word "humble" is significant here because it expresses the reality that the mother's most powerful emotion, while burying her son, is despair; it is not the pride portrayed by the misconceptions of war.
When compared to Stephen Crane's "War is Kind," Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" takes a more personalized view of the realities of war. The speaker in this poem is a foot soldier who is in the midst of the battle at the front line. The use of the first person communal "we" (2,3) in the first stanza immediately indicates that this soldier is among peers. He does not use the third person to distance himself from others. Unlike the speaker in "War is Kind," who is dealing with the guilt of leading men to their deaths, the speaker in Owen's poem seems to be haunted with the helplessness of watching powerlessly as his fellow soldiers die.
The images used in "Dulce et Decorum Est" are much more graphic and appalling than those used in "War is Kind." This poem describes a single incident, therefore, lending itself to a more vivid description. The diction used in Owen's poem very effectively conveys the horror that the speaker witnessed in the throes of battle by using words that are emotionally laden with disgust. Words such as "beggars" (1), "hags" (2), "sludge" (2), and "trudge" (4) make it easier to understand the soldiers' fatigue and the dreariness of their surroundings. The similes and metaphors in this poem are more difficult to understand, but their accuracy also makes them more rewarding because they appeal to all of the senses so clearly. We as readers can feel the burning of the chemicals as the speaker describes his fellow soldier "flound'ring like a man in fire or lime" (12) while he dies from the gas used in the war. We can hear the artillery shells falling all around: "the hoots / Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind" (7-8). We can see the almost alien, grotesquely contorted expression on the dying soldier's face: "His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin" (20). It is clear that the speaker is not emotionally removed from the other soldiers as he describes these "smothering dreams" (17) that haunt him. From his graphic account of events, we can conclude that this man is a foot soldier who experienced these horrors first hand.
The irony in "Dulce et Decorum Est" is not as obvious as the irony in "War is Kind," but there are some similarities in the way Owen's speaker describes the battle and the soldiers. The speaker uses "An ecstasy of fumbling" (9) to describe the men clambering for their gas masks during the attack. This combination of words is both surprising and disturbing since we would not ordinarily link the ideas of "fumbling," or groping awkwardly, with "ecstasy". Both speakers employ this deviation in diction to highlight the discrepancy between our society's beliefs about war and the actuality of it. The speaker in this poem also associates his fellow soldiers with youth and naivete when he describes their "innocent tongues" (24) and calls them "children ardent for some desperate glory" (26). The main irony presented in this poem is akin to that of "War is Kind" because the speaker wants people to stop lying about how "sweet" and "fitting" it is "to die for one's country."
Although "War is Kind" and "Dulce et Decorum Est" both address the irony between the reality of war versus the romantic ideal people have of war, the speakers in each poem are coming from different perspectives. The speaker in "War is Kind" struggles within. He is unable to express his true feelings externally because it will mean breaking from the military mold in which he is cast. In contrast, the speaker in "Dulce et Decorum Est" chooses to speak out to the world at large. Owen's speaker dares to do what Crane's speaker only wishes he could: condemn the society that perpetuates the lies about the glory of war. Each of them is experiencing their own emotional aftermath based on their situation, which is largely affected by their rank/position. This inequality in position and experience can be seen by looking at the poems' differing levels of detail in images, similes, metaphors, and most importantly, the contrasting emotional distances the tones of each poem convey through each soldier's approach.
(Heather Collins is a Freshman majoring in nursing at AASU.)