Preview

War and Memory in Irene Zabytko's "Home Soil", Bruce Weigl's "Song of Napalm", and Wilfred Owen's "Dulce Et Decorum Est"

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
769 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
War and Memory in Irene Zabytko's "Home Soil", Bruce Weigl's "Song of Napalm", and Wilfred Owen's "Dulce Et Decorum Est"
Bullets flying through the air right over me, my knees are shaking, and my feet are numb. I see familiar faces all around me dodging the explosives illuminating the air like lightning. Unfortunately, numerous familiar faces seem to disappear into the trenches. I try to run from the noise, but my mind keeps causing me to re-illustrate the painful memories left behind.
The three narratives "Home Soil" by Irene Zabytko, "Song of Napalm" by Bruce Weigl, and "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen all have the same feelings of war and memory, although not everyone experiences the same war. Zabytko, Weigl, and Owen used shifting beats, dramatic descriptions, and intense, painful images, to convince us that the horror of war far outweighs the devoted awareness of those who fantasize war and the memories that support it.
In the story "Home Soil" by Irene Zabytko, the reader is enlightened about a boy who was mentally and emotionally drained from the horrifying experiences of war. The father in the story knows exactly what the boy is going through, but he cannot help him, because everyone encounters his or her own recollection of war. "When their faces are contorted from sucking the cigarette, there is an unmistakable shadow of vulnerability and fear of living. That gesture and stance are more eloquent than the blood and guts war stories men spew over their beers" (Zabytko 492). The father, as a young man, was forced to reenact some of the same obligations, yet the father has learned to let go of the past, while the son is still caught in the presents of the war. The son 's memories of the war seem to overpower his ability to interact socially with family and friends. The father can only hope and pray that his son will one day regain the emotional stability that he used to have before the affects of Vietnam.
In the poem "Song of Napalm," it is a straight narrative of what it is like to live with memories from such a horrible war. "Song of Napalm" follows a Viet Nam



Cited: Owen, Wilfred "Dulce et Decorum Est." Robert 's pages 760-761 Robert, Edgar V. and Henry E. Jacobs. Literature: Introduction to Reading and Writing. 7th Ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2004. Weigl, Bruce. "Song of Napalm." Robert 's pages 1154-1155 Zabytko, Irene. "Home Soil." Robert 's pages 489-494.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    “Our lonely society makes it hard to come home from war” is presented by Sebastian Junger, who is the author of “The Perfect Storm”, and director of the war documentaries “Restrepo” and “Korengal”. Having seen war up close and personal, he recognizes the impact that battlefield trauma can have on soldiers. His talk is centered around how hard it is for soldiers to reacclimate to everyday life, especially in today’s society; a society that is broken, bitter, and divided. Junger’s TED Talk is effective because of his own experience with PTSD, and his understandings of a “tribe mentality” and the alienation they face when they return home.…

    • 848 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    I Believe, that in the short story the Ambush the Author Tim Obrien is struggling with the after effects of war. Much like many of our veterans who have come home from war. In the story the character keeps having flash backs to a traumatic event that happened to him during the war. In the vivid way he is telling the story it would seem he is reliving it over and over.…

    • 212 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    References: Kirszner, Laurie G., and Stephen R. Mandell. Eds. (2009) Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. 7th ed. Boston: Wadsworth.…

    • 894 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    “Facing it” by Yusef Komunyakaa and “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen, are two powerful poems with the graphical life like images on the reality of war. It is apparent that the authors was a soldier who experienced some of the most gruesome images of World War I. In “Ducle et Decorum Est” Owen tells us about a personal experience in which he survived a chemical warfare attack. Although he survives, some of his fellow troops do not. As in “Facing It” Komunyakaa is also a soldier who has survived a war. Komunyakaa response to his war experience is deeply shaped by his visit to Lin’s memorial. Inspired by the monument, Komunyakaa confronts his conflicted feelings about Vietnam, its legacy, and even more broadly, the part race plays in America. Both author used imagery and symbolism as they wrote these poems. Owens describes the soldiers as being crippled, mentally and physically overcome by the weight of their experiences in the war. He compares the young men to “old beggars under sacks”, saying that war turns young men with a full life ahead of them, and optimistic views into beggars that have given up on life and believe that life is never going to get any better (lines 1 and 2). The imagery that he uses allows us to see how gruesome the war really was, and how it was not just something that was glorious and honorable. In the second stanza Owens continues to use similes to show imagery, while ecstasy usually means, an excessive amount of happiness, here it is used to describe how young me are shocked into trying to run for their lives from “Gas! (line1). As where Komunyakaa describes himself as a black person that hides in the darkness of that granite (line 1 and 2). Komuyakaa stands at the memorial realizing that is more that it appears; it is not just cold stone, but something he identifies with on a more deep and profound level. It is this deeper meaning that inspires his emotional response in lines 3-5. These Loading...Manning Page 3 lines show both his…

    • 1468 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    “I am left with basically nothing. Too trapped in a war to be at peace, to damaged to be at war.” Army veteran Daniel Somers, talks about how when one is forced into war, they lose everything, including their mind, and are unable to get the peace they desire. This relates to the topic because the soldiers outlined in Tim O’Brien’s book, The Things They Carried, have gone through the feeling of being caught in a war while at the same time, dealing with psychological issues. This paper will go into detail about the soldiers struggle to retain their humanity and how specific traumatic events lead to the soldiers undoing. Events in the Vietnam War caused the soldiers immense psychological problems and forced them to give up their pre-war life.…

    • 1660 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cited: Roberts, Edgar V. and Robert Zweig. Literature An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Glenview: Pearson , Copyright 2012.…

    • 566 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cited: Updike, John. "A&P”. Roberts, Edgar V. and Zweig, Robert. Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. 5th ed. New York: Pearson Education, 2012. 311-15. Print.…

    • 927 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The way people learn about tragedies and times of war has usually been through statistics and other types of facts. These facts usually tell us a great deal about these experiences and what went on during these times. However, they do not tell us the whole story. We are not able to understand the reality of the situations and what the people were actually feeling. Two articles, “Hiroshima”, by John Berger, and “Soldiers’ Stories,” which includes accounts from various authors, show how there are other ways to show the experiences and emotions people go through during war.…

    • 1695 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    I Was Only 19 Essay

    • 1016 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The theme explores the horrifying and devastating effects that war has on the young soldiers involved. It shows the horrors and experiences; mental and physical problems that the young men had to deal with during and after the war. Some of these horrors included seeing their best mates killed in…

    • 1016 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Poetry has often been used as a way to record and reflect on events throughout history. War is an everlasting part of history and its impact is still felt through poetry. While “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen and “Five Day Requiem for Vietnam” by Nan Braymer both use dramatic diction to convey the theme that individuals should accept responsibility for their actions, Owen favors similes to express the agony of the soldiers and Braymer utilizes metaphor to communicate the government’s conflict of being a powerful but moral entity.…

    • 764 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wilfred Owen is a remarkable figure who expresses his thoughts and experiences of the unspeakable war and the decimation of youth in his passionate poetry during WWI. His exploration of human cruelty highlights the ramifications, suffering, and the pointlessness of warfare that explores the unbearable agony endured by the brave young soldiers. "Futility" and "Dulce et Decorum Est" are two poems that perfectly epitomise Owen's first-hand experience on hardship and uselessness of war. Here, he expresses the true meaning of war by exploring the dehumanising consequences through the extensive support of dramatic imagery. As an influential poet, Owen is strictly precise and attentive in his structure of both poems where he conveys the vision and sounds of the excruciating battlefield that he personally…

    • 1030 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dulce et

    • 899 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the poem Dulce Et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen uses language to attempt to influence the reader’s attitude towards the issue of war and the effects of it. Before reading Owen’s poem my personal views on war were vague and unclear and (like most of my generation), I had become desensitised through television and video games. Owen’s use of language and strong imagery has clearly shown me the ugly reality for soldiers who were often of a similar age to myself.…

    • 899 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Lamb

    • 1096 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Kennedy, X. J. and Dana Gioia. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Compact Interactive Edition. 6th ed. New York, NY: Pearson, 2010. ISBN: 0558573002. Pages 413 and 430.…

    • 1096 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Poetry, by its definition, is a type of language that unites beauty, the deep sense of the value of life, with truth, the realization and awakening to the meaning of life. Poetry is also a type of language that expresses more and expresses it more intensely than ordinary language. It can also unite the three uses of language: literary, hortatory, and practical. Poetry can be written on a very broad range of subjects. A poet can also write poetry about the beauties of life, but the ugliness of life and horrible experiences human may endure can be subjects, as well. The belief that poetry must rhyme, give a lesson, or only be about the sweet and lovely things in life is a misconception. Wilfred Owen knew of the horrors of war from his firsthand experiences in World War I. Owen’s war poetry has the common and recurring theme of death, destruction, inhumanity, and waste of human life , as three of his most famous war poems indicate: “Dulce Et Decorum Est,” “Anthem for Doomed Youth,” and “Strange Meeting.”…

    • 3045 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wilfred Owen later wrote his famous poem ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ which caused a turn-around in the way people thought and felt about the war. Owen delivers a powerful opening stanza, creating horrific images of the war “knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge” and later on with harsh onomatopoeia “guttering, choking, drowning”. This shows the reader the reality of…

    • 570 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays