Preview

A Mothers Dedication

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
571 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
A Mothers Dedication
As you open your eyes, you see the sight of fallen comrades, enemies, muddy trenches, barbed wire and let’s not forget about the guns and bullets. This occurred on a large scale ranging from the east of Europe to the west of Europe. This was none other than World War One. Two poems, “A Mother’s Dedication”, by Margaret Peterson and “Into Battle” by Julian Grenfell, both convey varying tones and attitudes to war.
The phrases, ‘and in the air death moans and sings’ in Julian Grenfell ‘Into Battle’ akin to ‘God shall uphold you that you fight aright.’ in ‘A Mother’s Dedication’ both engenders a feeling of death in the war. What separates these two quotes’ attitudes is that the quote from ‘Into Battle’ provides significantly more information about the war. ‘Moans and sings’ is an example of personification which shapes more meaning by providing more imagery to the poem. Conversely the quote from ‘A Mother’s Dedication’ depicts that the mother does realise what it is like in the battlefield. She uses ‘God’ symbolically to hope that her son survives from the war. As a result, the attitude from ‘Into Battle’ distinguishes itself from ‘A Mothers Dedication’ by their points of views.
From the quote ‘by all our fathers fought for in the past’ evokes a feeling of the mother’s patriotism and nationalism, as for that reason she wants her son to participate in the war. ‘fathers fought for’ is an example of alliteration which demonstrates more detail to the poem. In contrast, a quote extracted from the poem ‘Into Battle’, ‘and only joys of battle takes him by the throat, and makes him blind’ emphasises that the soldier is fighting without thinking about any consequences in mind. ‘joys of battle’ is an example of an oxymoron which highlights how the soldier is fed up with the war. Therefore both poems convey different attitudes to war.
‘the sun’ from ‘Into Battle’ analogous to the continuous reference of God in the third stanza from ‘A Mother’s Dedication’ and demonstrates

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    The First World War lasted between 1914 and 1918 and saw the death of nearly twenty million people (including civilians) and the casualties were even higher. Many were left wounded for life as they lost their limbs, sight or mind and they would never recover. Some soldiers couldn’t cope with life out of the trenches and were later confined to mental wards where some, if not, most committed suicide due to the horrors they had seen and committed. Pat Barkers “Regeneration” focuses on life for the soldiers during the war who were committed to Craiglockhart War Hospital in 1917. It features the poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon who were both admitted for shell shock and were under the care of the novels protagonist (and army psychiatrist) William Rivers. In this study I will be looking at the poetic works of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen along from an anthology of Poems of the Great War. I will also be looking at Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” as it features the German perspective as typically we would only think of our own countries point of view so it would be a great contrast to see the war from a different perspective style.…

    • 2527 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the beginning of the poem, the author uses imagery coupled with allusion and symbolism to illustrate how the speaker is conflicted by and reflecting on the memory of the war.…

    • 634 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.” – Siegfried Sassoon. Sassoon was a well known English poet who had gained recognition by writing about his experiences in the trenches as a soldier during WWI. Sassoon uses his experience to express the suffering he had undertaken on the battlefield which were described as brutalising, horrific and an unjustifiable waste of human lives. Thus it is through these practices that allow Sassoon to capture the brutality, futility and horror of trench warfare towards his audiences. Throughout all the works of Sassoon, four poems have stood out to demonstrate these three themes. Brutality being illustrated through ‘Counter Attack’ and ‘Suicide in the Trenches’, ‘ The Hero’ and ‘Does it Matter?’ demonstrating futility whilst ‘‘Counter Attack’ and ‘Suicide in the Trenches’ expressing horror.…

    • 911 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    War is a battle of not only the physical but also the psychological. In the text, All quiet on the western front, by Enrich Maria Remarque, and the poem Homecoming, by Bruce Dawe, our understanding is challenged through various representations of war such as innocence, srvivl and grief.…

    • 1195 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A soldier’s suffering holds no refrain from anyone, no matter what title or identity they have. In both the worlds of soldiers in those in the poem entitled “losses” by Randall Jarrell and at Devon school in “A Separate Peace” by John Knowles, there are several relationships that they share. Both center around the lives of soldiers and soon to be soldiers during the cruel time of the second World War which was happening in Europe. Jarrell experiments with multiple identity in the combination of several speakers united in one, all wasted even before they could be conceded into the real experience of war. In the book World War II symbolizes many themes related to each other in the novel, from the arrival of adulthood to the triumph of the Evil…

    • 957 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Homecoming by Bruce Dawe

    • 1161 Words
    • 34 Pages

    In “Homecoming”, poet Bruce Dawe uses vivid visual and aural poetic techniques to construct his attitudes towards war. He creates a specifically Australian cultural context where soldiers have been fighting in a war in Vietnam, and the dead bodies flown home. However the poem has universal appeal in that the insensitivity and anonymity accorded to Precious lives reduced to body bags are common attitudes towards soldiers in all historical conflicts. Although Dawe makes several references to the Vietnam War, the sense of moral outrage at the futile, dehumanising aspects of war is a universal theme. He also speaks on behalf of the mute, dead soldiers who have no way of expressing their suffering and loss of hope. By “speaking for those who have no means of speaking”, Dawe ultimately exposes the brutal hopelessness of soldiers caught up in foreign conflicts and the shocking impact on families.…

    • 1161 Words
    • 34 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Cited: Great War Society. 2004. “Special Feature: German War Poetry.” HYPERLINK "http://www.worldwar1.com/sfgp1.htm" http://www.worldwar1.com/sfgp1.htm (Accessed February 22, 2007).…

    • 1346 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Here Dead We Lie Essay

    • 518 Words
    • 3 Pages

    While reading “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae and “Here Dead We Lie” by A.E. Housman, I made sure to decode every word that the poems contained in order to self-interpret the pieces of literature. These World War I based poems carry significant stories of our once war torn planet. For example, “Here Dead We Lie” is a short, yet meaningful, poem about nationalism and pride towards ones country. In this poem, the author discusses the fact that soldiers often chose to die for their country instead of “to live and shame the land” (Housman 3). Later, he suggests that, since young men believe that life is of great significance, their sacrifices were of great value to the war effort. On the other hand, “In Flanders Fields” expressed the idea that,…

    • 518 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    War Poetry Analysis

    • 880 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The government tried conscriptions, which backfired on them greatly. Protests started and the people were standing up against the war. The battles may have been fought by soldiers, but the war was played by politicians. This war showed that it didn’t bring disgrace to your family if you didn’t fight, but rather showed your ability to keep up what the politicians were spouting; and in some cases if you went to war people would disrespect you for that choice. The history behind these two poems are overwhelmed with war and all its horrors.…

    • 880 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    These poems were authored during the First World War and the American civil war. I will be in a position to demonstrate that despite the lethalness of the wars which involved great loss of human life and massive property destruction, the lack of an objective…

    • 1037 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    No matter what the circumstances of ones life and interest, war has affected many and all lives across the world. Through evaluating values in the two different works depicting the World War I, War Horse and Wilfred Owens’s short poem have many similarities as well as differences. By further analyzing both pieces the goal is to aid in a better understanding of World War I. . Being forced to go fight in a different country and somehow being tricked into doing so through propaganda glamorizing the Great War. Being cold and wet and watching men die around you and better make sure you have a gas mask.…

    • 818 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wilfred Owen Essay

    • 922 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Owen effectively uses figurative language within his poem so the reader is able to apprehend the state of the soldiers’ pains and sufferings through the use of hyperboles and similes. Within the first stanza, Owen describes the soldiers to be ‘coughing like hags’ using the simile of ‘like’ and imagery to make the audience picture the soldiers walking on and coughing horrendously trying to relieve their lungs during the war. The hyperbole ‘Men marched asleep’ heightens the struggle of the men as they trudge their way through war. They’re robots struggling to stay awake through their journey of survival and the pity of war. ‘All went lame; all blind’ is another hyperbole that symbolises the soldiers bodies not being able to respond and unable to see what was happening in front of them because of the gas.…

    • 922 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wwi Poetry Analysis

    • 1147 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Suicide in the Trenches is broken down into three definite segments to portray the soldier’s early pure soul and misconception of war, the loss of innocence and suicide of the soldier followed by the delusion of war through the public’s eyes to help deepen our understanding of a soldier’s hardship. The first stanza shows the innocence of a young boy with little experience in the world. The soldier was described as “a simple soldier boy” (1), displaying him to be small and filled with hope for the future expecting the best of war. The soldier had no aspirations due to the fact that he was extremely young is represented on line two “ginned at life in empty joy” (2). Many young soldiers joined the army hoping to help them start a clear future and were genuinely content with serving their country. The gap separating the first two stanzas is to show the rapid loss of innocence in a soldier as he progresses as a soldier. The second stanza explains the emotional hardening experienced in war. It starts out with “In winter trenches, cowed and glum,” (5), showing the dark side of the battlefield in comparison with the first stanza. Happiness is now a struggle to maintain even thought he entered the war with great optimism. Then, the soldier develops “crumps and lice”(6), which were common unpleasant trench diseases…

    • 1147 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the poem, it shows the pain and suffering the soldiers went through along with the mothers, whose sons are in battle. Don’t send a mother’s son, just to go die in a war; The soldiers’ injury caused the other to look in agony; the speed of a bullet can cause death instantly, just with a hit on a soldier’s body; The canon can instantly kill many people; Don’t pay attention to the injured or dying soldiers, just keep going; You (soldier) know the drill, don’t be…

    • 352 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    context essay

    • 818 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Evidencing that every text is a reflection of its context is Leon Gellert’s poem “A Military camp in Egypt” and Wilfred Owens “Dulce et Decorum est.” Poetry stemming from WW1 is frequently presented as constantly opposed to the futility the conflict created. This is made even more pronounced when the poets themselves were enlisted as soldiers and endured the horrors documented within their works. Both Gellert and Owen use their poetry as a means to voice their opposition to fighting and critique the government’s continued sacrifice of youth and innocence.…

    • 818 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays