Has war Poetry lead modern society in the right direction or is It time to pick up our pens and rewrite the trend for the future understanding? War, a contest between two armed forces determining who Is right, perhaps the question should be who Is left? Throughout years of warfare different trends have emerged throughout the generations. This has changed modern society attitudes and beliefs towards present confrontation. 20th century war poetry has created a situation In modern society where through the prevalence of themes such as dispensation and condemnation, people have come distressed to the atrocities which occur.
World War 1 poet Wilfred Owen presents to the audience the ideology that war is not a glorious death, but highlights the austerity of war. The poem Dulcet et dcord um est. written by Owen attempts to presage the public by graphically portraying death in war. This Is evident in the quote “He (a dying soldier) plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning… Watch the white eyes withering his face. ” Society deceived into thinking war is morally right becomes understanding of the devastating reality of war. The reaction of the audience was complete and utter shock. The shock invoked immense feelings of antagonism.
Owen effectively awakens society into the true horrid events occurring at war. But how has public awareness affected an Individual’s perspective on combat? Modern collects exposure to death on a dally basis Is triggering our Immunity. It has caused society to become distressed! A big effect on humanity is the overload of violent video games that are war based themes such as Call of Duty. The point of the game is to slaughter people on a pixel screen where headsets and kill streaks are rewarded and when you die you can just restart. Shock Is significantly educed as modern society enjoys playing this game.
This disincentives the audience to the reality of war to a point where the games may contribute to people enlisting In the armed services. The poem identify different values as Dulcet et dcord um est. explicates the severe ordeals which war stows upon humans which no one should be subjected to. The distressed violence In video games such as Call of Duty which transform real life war scenarios Into pleasurable games on people’s screens, can be attributed to early texts such as Dulcet et dcord um est. which provided somewhat of an ‘overload of laity to the reader contributing to the dispensation present day.
The pure brutality of intense imagery that poets impress upon the audience is no match for the mass raid of 21st century entertainment. Yet can be seen to have contributed to the creation of the ideologies which led to the video games being produced. Events that occurred can also be traced back to World War 2 and particularly the representations of war during that period. For instance the poem, “Beach Burial” by Kenneth Doll Sellers illustrates the dispensation through the depiction of large scale death from the sailors. The scale of this death is played down and shows that during this period, people had become distressed to death.
The origin of this desensitizing stems from propaganda of the time in which large scale death was Justified by the need to combat the Nazis. An article composed by Dry. Anastasia Iverson, embarked on an important message relating to modern society beliefs towards death. She stated “The minute that we pick up the remote, it’s like we lose a little part of our soul. We are slowly becoming desensitizing, like a horse being broken in. ” In her article it was evident she took great offense to a massacre in a school where 33 people were killed.
It astonished her to realism society was not all that surprised by the massacre. She realized though death is a daily occurrence, it’s everywhere. Every time we see it on T. Eve become a little less human and feel a little less pain. It is a social injustice to be distressed and this is due to constant exposes to war and death. This shows that society is distressed to the reality of war. In comparison, the poem was striving desperately to awaken readers of the horrors of war. But as evident in the article all the advertisements and propaganda turned us onto sub-humans.
Because society is so exposed to war and death it no longer shocks and appall the large majority of people. Past representations of poems like Beach Burial has become nullified by a bombardment of mainstream media that numbs the shock to the point where we no longer feel pain for tragedies like war and death. The Vietnam War transformed modern societal values on war. This was apparent in war poetry in particular the Poem ‘Home Coming’ by Bruce Dade. The quote, “They’re bringing them home, now, too late, too early’, makes evident the contempt displayed awards the government and is part of what contributes to modern dispensation.
Purposely the poem was meant to persuade the readers that the government were making wrong decisions by sending troops into battle and this should not be condemned. The poem illustrates the uproar of anger society had towards sending troops to war. Specifically the last line signifies the resentment of sending the soldiers over as these deaths could have been avoided. Poems like this one were the basis for society to find their identity and rise against the wrath of the government. To war. However this has given strength to modern society to protest which is signified through songs.