Although the poems Recalling War by Robert Graves and Mental
Cases by simply Wilfred Owen are both concerned with the damage that war truly does to
the soldiers involved, they are different in almost every different respect. Owens
poem looks at the physical and mental effects of conflict in a very personal and
direct way his voice is certainly much in evidence in this poem he features clearly
seen people like the mental circumstances who will be described. It is additionally evident that
Owens very own experiences of the war happen to be described: he challenges someone with
terrifying images, to ensure that the reader may start to comprehend the reasons
of the chaos. Graves however is far more unattached. His debate is
faraway, using historic images to explore the immediate and long-term effects of
war on the soldier. The poem is a meditation around the title, Graves examining the
developing experience and remembrances of conflict with a progress of pictures and
metaphors. Mental Situations is a powerful poem, that contain three
considerable stanzas which focus on different facets of Owens subject. The
first stanza is a in depth description of what the mental cases appear like.
Their outward appearance is gruesome, Baring teeth that leer like
skulls’, preparing someone for the even more horrifying second stanza.
The second sentirse concentrates on the mens past experiences, the deaths they will
have seen and the ridiculous nightmares they have lived through:
Multitudinous killers they once witnessed. The very last stanza proves
the composition, explaining how the mens lives are haunted by way of a experiences, that they
go crazy because the past filters in to every aspect of their present lives, the
males retreat away from memories and into chaos. The form of Owens poem is
therefore , built a couple of main points: the appearance of the men, their particular
experiences, as well as the effect this has on their lives. In Graves poem the form is
likewise key to understanding the poem, although perhaps within a less apparent way.
Remembering War offers five stanzas, in a kind that corresponds to the
mental emotions and physical knowledge war provokes. The initial stanza
describes how Pénible expects the war to become remembered 20 years after the
function: the wounds have healed and the blind and disabled men your investment
injuries the war caused, as their remembrances are blurry by the range of time
The one-legged guy forgets his leg of wood. Inside the second stanza
Graves moves on to query the nature of warfare. This sentirse is a information of
the atmosphere and setting of war. Even if the season was your airiest
May/ Down pushed the sky, and we, oppressed, thrust away. The third stanza
focuses on the battle itself, and the last explores the aftermath of battle
plus the unbearable character of the conflict. The 5th and final stanza results to the
suggestions expressed in the first stanza, of war being an unreal memory. The form of
this kind of poem is crucial to their understanding. The progressions designated by the
stanzas highlights the argument Fatal is making. Mental Situations and
Remembering War are poems that rely on the atmosphere and tone
that they create, certainly this is a vital source of their power. Owen creates a
horrifying atmosphere throughout the poem, which is clearly a reflection of his
subject matter. Besides Owen illustrate in dreadful detail the shocking
overall look of the guys, he also includes horrific photos of conflict. The tone is very
highly effective, with Owen asking inquiries in the 1st stanza, nevertheless who are
these hellish?, a device which will cleverly establishes direct exposure to
the reader and an engaging task. This reference to the reader is definitely
exploited inside the second sentirse, in which the reader experiences the full force of
Owens symbolism. The final stanza opens having a tone that is certainly factual: -Thus
their hands are plucking at each different, summarizing the truth that these
men behave how they do due to events they have and are encountering.
Owen ends the poem by insisting on the complicity of equally himself and the reader
inside the fate of such men, an accusation which usually, after the strong prelude, is definitely
hard to deny. Whereas Owens composition is highly effective as a result of it is consistently
horrific atmosphere and tone, Tragique poem adjustments tone from stanza to stanza
emulating the different phases of sense a enthusiast experiences. The poem opens
with a strengthen that is truthful yet isolated, as though an old tale ended uphad been told
While when the morning traveller becomes and views/His wild night-stumbling
carved in a hill. This kind of tone focuses on Graves explanation of dimly
remembered enduring which is fading into the range: Entrance and exit
wounds are silvered clean. The other stanza techniques into a distinct tone
war is described as not only a conflict between countries, but a universal catastrophe
No mere discord of flags/ But an infection in the common heavens. The
strengthen and ambiance created will be ominous, there exists a feeling of anticipations and
fear reminding you of soldiers waiting for challenge: oppressed, pushed out
Boastful tongue, clenched fist and valiant garden. Natural infirmities were out of
setting, For Death was fresh again The third stanza does not immediately transform
tone, nevertheless the feeling of dread increases while Graves recides on thoughts of
premature death and little about valiant garden. However , roughly half
approach through the stanza the sculpt does transform dramatically. The poem turns into not
anxious but basic clear, the necessities of life will be described and the tone
reminds the reader of your adrenaline filled soldier, thrilled with the fight and
behavioral instinct of success, A tool at the thigh, surgeons at call..
However , by the up coming stanza the battle is finished and the experience of war presumes
a unattainable guise. Everything good in the world has looked to ashes
Termination of each content art and faith and the duty to fight turns
into the obligation to run mad. The strengthen of the composition is tragic, having
noticed hope choose fear, thrill and finally break. The highly effective climax
with the poem in the fourth stanza is even more emphasized within the last verse, as the
strengthen returns to just one of unreal memory. The poets tone of voice is ironic with child-like
naivet?: Machine-guns rattle toy-like from a hill. The past lines of the poem
difference in tone once again as the poet describes a future of despair in the event the past
can not be remembered with accuracy and acceptance: When learnedly the future we
spend on yet even more boastful dreams of hopelessness. Both poets use a incredibly
descriptive and revealing choice of vocabulary. A particular feature of Owens
poem is the utilization of alliteration to emphasise the image he can trying to create:
Memory hands in their frizzy hair of murders, Multitudinous killers The duplication of
the m appear serves to improve the impact in the image, reminding the reader
of a stammering, shell-shocked soldier. Thus their heads wear this
hilarious, gruesome is another sort of alliteration. Owens choice of
phrases such as slob, baring, swelters
hideous and flesh most help to increase readers
horror as theses terms describe as good the disturbing dreams the men are experiencing.
Graves words also have a strong impact on the reader: his words spotlight the
differences between the stanzas. The second stanza describing the toruble for the
battle uses words like sagged, ominously
oppressed, clenched and constrained. In contrast
to the the last stanza includes words and phrases such as piecrust
nibbling, shake and dandelions, emphasizing
the child-like recollections of warfare. The compare between the third and next
stanzas are actually more visible. The second half of the third stanza aims to
spotlight the simple and uncomplicated emotions the soldiers experience although
they are in combat, this can be reflected simply by words like roof
contact, wine, craze and absence
these are most monosyllabic phrases stressing Graves? point. In the fourth stanza
Graves language changes and becomes more complicated: foundering
sublimities, protesting, Termination
unendurable, again these are phrases which reveal the fact the fact that
soldiers are questioning aiming to solve a problem or paradox. The
clashes in the two poets terminology is intriguing. Owens vocabulary is far
more uncooked and hard hitting, considered but not tortured over. Fatal choice
of vocabulary shows the fact that he is producing a more complex series of
details, the words are perhaps rather contrived. The photographs in Mental
Cases by simply Owen happen to be perhaps the the majority of shocking facet of the composition. There are
3 central images within Owens poem, covered within the three stanzas. The
first photos are those that describe the mental circumstances. Owen uses simile and
metaphor. from jaws that slob their very own relish, the boys are defined
like animals, drooling with Drooping tongues. These photos imply
the experience of war for these guys has taken away their mankind. Owen
then simply describes the men as having teeth that leer like skulls the teeth.
This simile not only makes a clear photo in the brain of the visitor, it also
provides to show just how these mental cases aren’t lucky being alive, in fact , they
suffer more than their dead comrades: not only do they look like death and
behave like animals, in addition they continue to undergo the miseries of the living
world, that of memory, disturbing dreams and chaos: What slower panic/Gouged
these types of chasms round their fretted sockets?. This kind of image went on to the
end of the stanza as Owen claims that seeing these types of mad males would make any individual
think these people were in hell because of the dreadful picture they create. This kind of again
tones up Owens argument that, though these men survived the warfare alive, the
scars that they suffer happen to be worse than any fatality we can picture. Within the second
stanza Owen progresses to produce images from the living heck which the mental
cases skilled and are now reliving. This can be the climax of the poem since line
upon line gives new disasters. The first line of the stanza reveals more clearly
the idea that the men are suffering perhaps more than even the dead men:
You will find men whose minds the Dead possess ravaged. This explores the
feeling the fact that mad guys owe their very own lives in someway to the fatality of their
comrades. The image with their fellow military who are now dead haunts them, this
is a seite an seite with the sentiments Owen develops at the end of the poem, the fact that
reader and poet will be somehow the reason for the chaos of the mental cases, in
the same way which the mad men feel guilt about the boys killed. Owen uses imagery
in the poem in such away the reader is actually haunted by the images of
the upset men, and are also left with a strong impression of remorse at all their
sacrifice intended for our your life and sanity. The images always horrify through the
rest of the stanza. One of the most stunning images is the mad men
jogging the dépouille of useless men Wading sloughs of flesh these kinds of helpless
take off an image which can be disturbing not only because of the graphic it
makes, but also the idea that these suffering males reached the positioning they
are in because of the deaths of thousands of others, Treading bloodstream from
lung area that got loved frivolity. This is a very shocking picture mainly
mainly because Owen provides chosen to give one of the few references to emotion inside the poem
to a decapitated corpse on which the mad men walk. The decision to put
loving laughter up coming to blood from lungs is such a stark
contrast which the horror of what Owen is talking about cannot kitchen sink in around the first
time of reading, it is further emphasized by the use of alliteration which
challenges the link between the words, Costly image too terrible to comprehend
so it will serve its goal, the reader can be disgusted and revolted with what is
explained. The second stanza ends with a very effective image Conflit
incomparable, and human squander/Rucked too solid for these men’s
extrication. This can be a extension of images earlier inside the stanza
nevertheless the men are no longer walking on the bodies of dead guys, they are staying
drawn beneath by them, unable to break free from the thousands of bodies of men whose
dying was unnecessary. This image focuses on Owens perception that not only did war
result in millions of wasteful fatalities, but the males who survived are also lost
because the remembrances of the scary and conflit they knowledgeable
means these men can never come back to sanity. The closing verse of the poem
concludes that these memories happen to be understandably too horrid to get the mental
cases to handle, however existence and the living only serve to remind them from the
dead: Sunlight seems a blood-smear, night comes blood-black. Here
Owen links the photographs of two natural points, sunlight and night with blood, also
a natural element. However when located together and within the context of the
earlier stanza, the natural turn into unnatural and disturbing. You is able
to identify with the battling man since we as well are repulsed by the idea of
dawn breaking open just like the wound that bleeds over. This is a great
image which suggests the inability for the wounds to cure, and even the dawn, a great
image linked to re-birth is a re-opening of wounds, a stark contrast
with the injuries silvered clean in Fatal poem. End of trading of the
stanza refers to the beginning of the poem, as the upset men will be described
once again as being like dead males: Awful falseness of set-smiling
corpses. The last lines describe the images with the mental cases trying
to touch the living and sane, the poet and the reader, who have knock them back with
horror, even though Owen claims it is us who worked the war and
craziness Graves symbolism, unlike Owen is delicate, not as surprising and
direct, but regarded carefully it can be as effective and complex. The composition opens
having a powerful graphic Entrance and exit wounds silvered clean this
relies upon the brilliant juxtaposition from the words exit wounds with
silvered clean. The reader is usually taken by amaze as they are strange
words to find together, the poet, someone realizes, can be describing the modern
skin of a scar still left by a well used wound. The first stanza is full of pictures of the
healed or neglected scars on the planet war, and the poet explains why: Their very own war
was fought these twenty years in the past And now assumes the nature-look of time, Since
when the morning traveller turns and landscapes His untamed night-stumblings carved into
a hill. This kind of image subtly argues the way the distance of your energy does not often
clarify, objectify and generate accurate previous events, actually time fog the details
and obscures the negative recollections. This straight contrasts with Owens perspective.
Owen keeps in his composition, that the mad men may and will by no means be able to
your investment events that they experienced inside the war. Their scars will not become
silvered clean, yet remain unbearably painful. Pénible poem begins
to examine the war which the men knowledgeable throughout the second verse. The
stanza examines the build up and anticipation of challenge, using a develop that is a
blend of fear and anticipation. Graves uses pathetic fallacy, the elements
reflects the good feelings of pressure and reductions that the military experience
the regular sky/That sagged ominously after the earth. This kind of also provides
the impression that the soldiers do have to confront not only the full might in the
German army, but the strength of the elements too: Straight down pressed the
sky. Fatal then goes on to contrast the natural factors to the not naturally made
death with the young men: Natural infirmities had been out of mode, Intended for Death
was young once again: Patron exclusively Of healthful dying, untimely fate-spasm. This image
is specially effective as it personifies loss of life, a device which brings loss of life
closer: someone feels that death is definitely approaching the waiting soldiers. The
adversary is no longer a distant surprise, but an encroaching Patron
looking for his food. This previous line is usually emotive of any dying person. The
commas and hyphen give the collection a jerky feel, like a spasm of death. The poet
after that moves in to the battle on its own as another stanza starts. This passage is
specifically interesting since it is full of photos of antiqueness of
romantic endeavors, images reminiscent of ancient stories of struggling with men, concerned
only with wine, various meats, log-fires, a roof within the head, an old
chivalry and heroism. The men become solely physical beings, as your body is
surely the primary concern on the battlefield and Our youth became all
flesh and waived your head.. The image invokes pictures of young
troops experiencing the adrenaline of threat, an emotion which leaves little
the perfect time to worry about the massacre which surrounds all of them, only swearing when
in lack of various meats, wine, fireplace, /In discomfort of injuries beyond almost all surgeoning.
The simple words Tragique uses displays the simple needs and animal-like
instincts the soldiers encounter. The fourth stanza is the orgasm of the poem
the struggle is over as well as the images shall no longer be simple and easy.
Graves answers his issue What, after that, was war? with War was
foundering of sublimities, Extinction of every happy artwork and trust. War offers
destroyed every thing noble and impressive, exactly what made your life livable.
After the physical exertion from the battle, Pénible now reveals the grim
aftermath, where the mind begins to process the events it has only experienced.
Graves presents an image of a delicate sanity which in turn attempts to know the
warfare Protesting common sense or protesting love,. The stanza ends with the
image of a enthusiast finally digesting under the excess weight of the quick
memories and his inability to reason the horrors this individual has witnessed: Until the
unendurable moment struck- The inward scream, the work to run mad. The last
verse of Tragique poem returns to the suggestions explored in the first stanza. The
poets voice is usually ironic as he uses images from years as a child to describe the
terrifying war he shown the previous poems. And we recollect the cheerful
ways of guns-, the images help to make war audio child-like and unreal, the word
recall reminds the reader of the poems title Recalling
Warfare. It has the effect of almost noiselessly posing the question, is this
how war ought to be recalled? The answer then is of course evident having read the
previous stanzas, and the final lines in the poem simply serve to what is
readers a conclusion: When learnedly the future all of us devote To but more boasting
visions of despair This really is a warning from Pénible. He argues that our foreseeable future will
become filled with the despair that his technology experienced in the event the
horror and brutalities are generally not remembered. Tragique has used a multitude of
imagery to create a complete picture of various stages that the gift
experiences while at war, an excellent sequence of emotions that illustrate certainly not
only the harm war does and the painful memories celebrate, but the damage
which can be performed if these types of memories are forgotten or blurred. This contrasts
straight with Owens poem that seeks to describe the damage made by war in order to
is not forgotten. Both poets talk about the scarring that conflict leaves, equally physically
and mentally. Tragique poem is certainly much a unattached reflection upon war, concentrating
on before, during after effects of a battle to be able to argue the actual that
warfare should not be forgotten. The immediate a result of war is incredibly powerfully
referred to, but the long term scars are claimed being forgettable and
silvered clean, a strong contrast with Owens view. Owens poem
portrays the very personal effects war has, this individual describes people whom this individual has attained.
Indeed as a poet who also spent a number of the war within a mental institution for soldiers
called Craiglockhart, it is amazing that he is as separate as he is, considering
this individual could well have been completely described as a mental case himself, as he suffered
via shell shock and disturbing dreams.. Owens portrayal is gruesome and stunning
finally ending by putting the responsibility intended for the chaos at the foot of
someone and poet. This composition, not only shows Owens look at of the scars
war leaves on persons, it also serves as a useful insight into the way in which
Owen was scarred by conflict. He clearly feels guilt ridden at his survival, and he too is
haunted by the pictures of the lifeless that he describes, just how else may they end up being so
brilliant? This is possibly the most interesting aspect unveiled by Owens poem, the
scars left by war on a real human with the ability to exhibit and speak
the damage in such a way that the reader isn’t just shocked, yet greatly shifted.
The poem has its intensity because Owen was writing it while in direct speak to
with the mental cases while Graves is far more distant and describing the
memories of war. A poem which describes a great inability to remember is far less
disturbing than the usual poem which usually describes not being able to ignore.
