Dehumanization in War Poetry: Owen, Sassoon, and Cheng

Introduction

My report explores the horrors of war across a range of war poems by examining the dehumanisation of the young soldiers in World War I and how war affects their families and society. The poems I chose to use were Anthem for Doomed Youth, by Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est, also by Wilfred Owen, Attack, written Siegfried Sassoon, and Reservist, written by Boey Kim Cheng. I felt that all four of the chosen poems had enough evidence for me to discuss the dehumanisation of the soldiers who fought in WWI and how war affects their families and society.

Wilfred Owen presents the dehumanisation of the young soldiers in the meat grinder of the Western Front by sharing his experiences of war, to challenge society’s patriotic mindset. After analysing the poem, I found that Owen uses a range of language features to depict the dehumanisation of war. Owen begins the poem with a rhetorical question: “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?”. What Owen is alluding to here, is the fact the parish church bells which were used to lament the dead are starkly absent on the battlefield and that instead of the bells, the only sound giving the soldiers a send-off is the “stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle”. The simile also compares the death of the soldiers to the death of cattle as it shows that the soldiers are trapped at the mercy of others - similar to a slaughterhouse - indicating that there isn’t much hope in escaping death. Owen then asks the reader: “What candles may be held to speed them all? / Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes/ Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes”. This is ironic as we know that there will not be a formal funeral for the soldiers and that there won’t be any candles, just the sky garishly lit up with explosives.

Typically, people that die outside of the war get a proper send-off with a formal funeral service, which many would expect to be a basic human right. However, in the meat grinder of the Western Front, it is the complete opposite. Owen uses the contrast between the glorious expectations from the soldiers versus the reality, allows the reader to ask themselves: Why are we sending young men to the battlefield when they still have too much to live for? What Owen wants us to understand here is that they were ordinary young men who had more to live for than to die in the battlefield where they would be forgotten, and that war is not like how Jessie Pope (one of the main poets who glorified war) portrayed it - glorious and heroic. It is still quite common to see the dehumanisation of the soldiers today, in countries such as North Korea where their soldiers are deprived of basic human rights such as the right to have enough food and the right to be free.

The poem, Attack, written by Siegfried Sassoon differs slightly as he does not use irony to display the dehumanisation of the soldiers. Sassoon instead opts to display the message as clearly as possible in order to maximise the effect it has on the reader. Both Owen and Sassoon however, challenge the common gung-ho perspective on war, to expose the horrors of war. Sassoon starts by setting the scene with the “wild purple of the glow’ring sun” using a calm tone, however, in the next line the tone changes as he begins to describe the battlefield over the mountain. Near the end, he begins to describe the emotions of his fellow soldiers: “grey, muttering faces, masked with fear”. What Sassoon is eluding to here is the fact that these young soldiers have finally realised the horrors of war behind the facade created by Pope and Horace. Sassoon ends the poem with the striking metaphor: “Flounders in mud. O Jesus, make it stop”. Sassoon wants us to understand that sending young men to war is essentially like committing suicide as the once gung-ho soldiers have no resorted to crying and begging for the torture to stop. Sassoon’s Attack emphasises the fact that these young men are going to war and risking their lives, but their country is unwilling to return the favour by giving them the right to die in dignity.

Owen’s most famous poem, Dulce et Decorum Est, is similar to Anthem for Doomed Youth in the sense that he shares his experiences of war, to challenge the fact that war is glorious and heroic. It is also similar to Anthem for Doomed Youth as it also has an ironic tone throughout the poem. The poem’s title which is Latin for “It is sweet and proper to die for one’s country”, is ironic as it is the complete opposite of what the poem is actually about, thus maximising the effect it has on the reader.

Owen explains how the soldiers “limped on, blood-shod … drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots / Of gas-shells dropping softly behind”. The use of the words “drunk” and “deaf”, indicates that the soldiers were forbidden from sleeping and in some cases, even for a few days, in case the enemy attacked them. Owen could also be alluding to the fact that they were mentally fatigued as many of the soldiers sat silently for hours, waiting for the enemy to strike. The use of the word “blood-shod” also helps the further reinforce the zombie-like nature of the soldiers, as it shows that the soldiers were wearing blood-soaked shoes but still continued to endure the pain, in order ‘protect’ the country. However, what the soldiers don’t realise is that the country is not willing to do the same for them, by giving them a dignified funeral if the die, as they were promised by the propaganda Horace and Pope spread to lure young adults to join the Army. The juxtaposition Owen creates between the glorified title and the conditions of the exhausted soldiers, helps to expose the false image of war being dignified and glorious.

Like Owen's “Anthem for Doomed Youth” and Sassoon’s “Attack”, Owen’s most famous poem, “Dulce et Decorum Est” also has the same dehumanising message throughout the poem - the soldiers are denied the right to die in dignity by their country.

The poem, Reservist, by Boey Kim Cheng mocks the practice of military training that all men undergo in Singapore for a total of two years, until they are forty years old, to prepare for a metaphorical war. Cheng compares the training to medieval warfare through the use of medieval diction such as “joust”, “fanfare”, and “clarion”. Through the use of these words and the opening line: “Time again for the annual joust, the regular warfare”, we find that Cheng finds the practice of compulsory training pointless - like Don Quixote swinging his sword at the windmills, thinking it was some enemy.

Through the use of the negatively loaded tone in the quote, Cheng speaks on behalf of many Singaporeans to tell us that the yearly training is not worth it, as they “charge up the same hills [and] plod through the same old forest”, indicating that it is boring as they do they same course every year and also pointless as they do not do anything new. After reading the poem, Cheng makes us ask ourselves: Why are they forcing people to train for a metaphorical when they already have 75,000 troops? Even today, many young men in Singapore find the practice of military training to be purposeless as they “march up the same paths till they break”. After further researching how the reservist system works, I also found that the training was quite pointless.

The fact most young men are forced into the training right after school finishes makes no sense as once they spend two years in the army, they’ve most likely forgotten most of the stuff they do at school. The training also hurts low-income families the most, as many find that running a household with the small allowance they get is not enough. Many people also find themselves without a job as their workplace has replaced them because they have been gone for so long. Cheng like many Singaporeans, who have got past the propaganda, want to remove the compulsory training service as they want to live their lives without training for a metaphorical war.

Owen’s Anthem for Doomed Youth also looks at how war affects the soldiers’ families, but in a different time period. Once again, Owen uses a range of language features such as symbols and irony, to show us how war affects the soldiers’ families and the effect war has on the greater society. The line, “The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall”, is also a key metaphor which Owen uses the create contrast between the glorious depiction of war and the horrors of war. The fact this all of these rituals are absent on the meat grinder of the Western Front helps the reader to understand that the suffering caused by death, not only affects the soldiers themselves but also the greater society economically, but also emotionally as many will lose their best friends and neighbours.

Owen then goes on to show us how the civilians “each slow dusk draw-down [the] blinds”. This is a striking metaphorical symbol for civilians back on ‘civvy’ street, draw down their blinds, to keep the horrors of war out. What Owen really wants us to understand here is the fact that these people will continue glorify war in the day, but at night, close their blinds to hide from the darkness - the reality of war. Today’s society, however, has changed in the sense that we now know the horrors of war and how it can cause physical damage as well as emotional damage to those in the war but also those back at home.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I found that both of Owen’s poems, “Anthem for Doomed Youth” and “Dulce et Decorum Est” and Sassoon’s “Attack” helped to debunk the false portrayal of war: glorious and honourable, which was spread by Jessie Pope and many other poets who romanticised the ‘meat grinder’ of the Western Front. From this I was able to come to conclusion that both Owen and Sassoon wanted to expose the propaganda which was spread by Jessie Pope and many other poets who romanticised the ‘meat grinder’ of the Western Front, to create a change in society that would change life in the future by giving people the right to live in a place without war. Owen’s “Anthem for Doomed Youth” and Cheng’s “Reservist” also help us to show how the preparation of war affects society and disrupts life. Today, society has changed for the better after realising that war is not as glorious as it seems, through the first-hand experiences of war seen on the news and that the only thing war causes are the death of innocent people.