War

Pick two of these poems that deal with war. What is the message that they convey?

Wilfred Owen – Dulce et Decorum Est
Randall Jarrell – The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

Dulce et Decorum Est and The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner are two poems that deal with the war and death. Dulce et Decorum Est is a poem written by an English solider. He is basically telling the story on his point of view. He's watching a dear friend die at the war in which they are fighting in. " Gas! Gas! Quick boys!- An Ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound' ring like a man in fire or lime...". " As under a green sea, I saw him drowning." " He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning." He later on in the poem questions that if it's really worth it to die for your country. I mean you do all these things and sacrifice so much and at the end it's all gone. Just like that. As if nothing ever mattered. " The Old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patrai mori".

On the other hand, we also have the poem The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner. In the poem The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner, the narrator of the poem dies at war. He falls asleep while others are firing. The first line, "From my mother's sleep I fell into the State.” The speaker tells us that at birth, he fell from his mother's womb not into ordinary human life but into the womb of the State. "The ball turret was a rotating plexiglass machine gun enclosure that protruded from the belly of the bomber so that the gunner could direct fire at enemy fighters attacking from below." "I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. Flak which is a jacket designed to provide protection, and woke up to the shooting that were being directed towards him. “When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.” At this point we get the feeling that he feels worthless. They washed him out of the turret with a hose. Everything that he has done for his country and they couldn't remove his body more properly.