Different Perspectives of War

For my poem essay I am going to compare the two poems "The Man He Killed" by Thomas Hardy and "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen. I am going to compare the different tones that are used in these two poems. In "The Man He Killed", Hardy used a straight forward tone, one that implies that a person is only doing is job in war and that the enemy could very well be a "every day Joe" that you are sitting next to at a bar. In "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen, Owen uses descriptive images that makes the reader feel like he is right inside the poem, seeing all of the horrific details of being in a war. In "The Man He Killed", on lines 9 and 10 it reads, "I shot him dead because---Because he was my foe,". A pretty simple statement that doesn't embellish on the intricacies of war. Owen uses a lot more descriptive words to make the reader fully understand the emotions that war can bring on to a soldier. "And watch the while eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;" (19,20). In the last few lines of Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est", he writes, "To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est" (26,27). This means that people tell their children how sweet it is to be a soldier and fight for one'c country but it is a lie. All of the horrid images that the soldiers experience everyday, it is not sweet at all.
Elizabeth Hillukka