Comparison poetry blog

I am going to compare the two poems “The Man He Killed” by Thomas Hardy and “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen. The two compare in multiple ways as to the tone of both being serious about war and the killing that takes place. Both use a soldier as the speaker as in “Dulce et Decorum Est” the soldier in the poem says “…we cursed through sludge…”(2) and in “The Man He Killed” the soldier is talking about how he shoots someone “I shot at him as he at me,”(7). Both soldiers feel a sense of helplessness as each poem uses imagery to expose readers to death. In Thomas Hardy’s poem the speaker is actually forced to cause the death and in Wilfred Owen’s poem the speaker is witness to a fellow soldier’s death. Both soldiers in each poem tell readers a tale of what it could be like to be at war and their feelings of a civic duty for their country really doesn’t outweigh the horror of death that they have just experienced.