The Futility of Dying for a State through Poetic Devices

"Dulce et Decorum Est" and "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"

Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" (1920) uses vivid imagery primarily to remove any romantic or patriotic idea that it is sweet to die for one's country. Randall Jarrell's "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" uses ambiguity to compare the death for the state to an abortion. Each poem presents the death of a man for his country, though with contrasting poetic devises. The poetic devises in the poems, "Dulce et Decorum Est" and "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" convey the horror and futility of dying for a state.

"The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" begins: "From my mother's sleep I fell into the State And hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze" (720). The gunner is born from his mother's warm womb into the cold State; he leaves the safety and warmth of his mother womb and falls into the dangerous state of being in the freezing belly of a high altitude bomber. The "State" is not referred to patriotically or romantically in this nature but more as cold and less than nourishing (720).

In "Dulce et Decorum Est" soldiers are first reduced to a bunch of ill, hunch﷓backed, old bag

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Bibliography

Meyer, Michael. The impending doom and horror are also alluded to in the pervious quote. However, it also brings images of an aborted fetus being washed from the womb: "When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose" (720). Either way the sentence is received, it seems less than desirable and certainly not glorious. Through his imagery one can easily visualize the blood "gargling" from dead or dying soldiers "lungs Bitter as the cud Of vile" (763).

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Approximate Word count = 861
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

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