Key Skills in English


Note: Underlining and PQE (Point, Quotation, Explanation) marks are inserted here for demonstration purposes only. You will not insert these into your response.


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Sample Answers to Studied Poem


(a) ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ by Wilfred Owen. (b) I have chosen the poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ by Wilfred Owen, to demonstrate how a poet can convey powerful thoughts and feelings through the use of interesting language.


The powerful opening of the poem makes one think of how war breaks the spirits of soldiers. [P] Instead of the glorious future, promised by war propaganda, they are reduced to the level of a pitiful procession of broken men, more like old ‘hags’ than heroes. Feelings of pity are evoked in the reader as they imagine the suffering, weariness and despair as the soldiers ‘cursed through sludge’, ‘marched asleep’ and ‘limped’ back to their base. [Q+E] Following on from this image, the poet explores the thought that no soldier, who has experienced the horror of seeing others die, ever really escapes from the memory. [P] The poet cannot forget that he saw a comrade ‘flound’ring like a man in fire or lime’, ‘drowning ‘in the ‘green sea’ of a gas attack. Feelings of the same helplessness which he experienced at the time, come back to haunt him. The fear, as the soldier ‘plunges’ at him, ‘guttering’ and ‘choking’ never leaves his memory. [Q+E] The powerful ending of the poem presents the major theme or thought to the


readers.[P] The poet is disgusted by the ‘old Lie’, which is told with ‘high zest’ to innocent school children. He declares that it is neither noble nor sweet to die for your country on the battlefield. The poem ends on this note of anger and disgust for the masking of truth. [Q+E]


(c) This poem, powerful in both thoughts and feelings, had a strong impact on me. I thought that the poet used extremely interesting language techniques in this poem. Superb images are employed to graphically describe the procession of weary men. [P] Owen compares them to ‘old beggars under sacks’ and ‘hags’. These images are interesting because create a stark contrast to the expectations of ‘glory’, which the soldiers once cherished. The language chosen emphasises their degradation in war. [Q+E] The use of verbs such as ‘coughing’, ‘cursed’, ‘began to trudge’, all conjure up the atmosphere of despair and fatigue. [P] The pace of the poem is slow and tedious. Sentences are varied in length and broken up by punctuation marks. This gives the impression of the uneven steps taken by men who are ‘drunk with fatigue’. The sudden change of pace, as the gas attack occurs is also reflected in the skilful


90


Unit 2: Poetry


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