Dulce Et Decrum Est by Wilfred Owen and The Things They Carried by Tim OBrien - Essay Example

Dulce Et Decrum Est by Wilfred Owen and The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien The two stories are about different wars. However, both authors perceive war as a burden and catastrophic experience. They believe that those who dispatch soldiers to war have a different knowledge and experience of it than those who partake in it. Conversely, they also share the opinion that the catastrophic experiences of war end in victory. This paper will compare and contrast the strategies used by the two authors to display this theme and explain why both are correct. Similarities of Why War is a Burden In his first line, Owen starts by stating that they were “bent double, like old beggars under sacks” (Gioia and Kennedy 1). This denotes fatigued and crippled soldiers, both mentally and physically, by their experiences in war. They were also young soldiers. Owen also suffers comrade guilt occasioned by circumstances beyond his help. He sees a soldier in dim, green light before his helpless eyes. The soldier is plunging at him, choking, guttering and drowning. The thought of helplessly watching the soldier die of gas poisoning takes a toll on him. He only heard someone fumbling for a helmet, and by the time he saw him choking on gas, he could not help. Similarly, O’Brien’s title, The Things They Carried speaks for itself. He symbolizes the Alpha Company’s emotional burdens with the catalog of physical objects the members had to carry to war (Gioia and Kennedy 1). For example, among the burdens the young soldiers bore was the necessity to face up to the tension between reality and fantasy. Their inexperience and young age compounds this further. They left home as scared boyfriends, students or children. Most did not have the capacity to come to terms with their friends’ sudden deaths or rationalize killing. Differences of Why War is a Burden The two authors bring out this aspect using different strategies. After the war, it took Owen many years reflecting on the sight of his dying, gas poisoned comrade. The images of gas bombs dropping beside them, soldiers scrambling for gas masks and their helplessness are all over in his dreams, thoughts and poetry. He uses these thoughts to describe the burden of war to the people rallying behind the youth at home urging them to go to war and fight for their country and pride (Gioia and Kennedy 1). He portrays a feeling of the burden by wondering how they lobby for war, yet they have not witnessed the physical agony it can create or experienced the emotional disturbance he is undergoing. Here, he also shows there is nothing honorable about war. He would not wish to carry the burden. On the other hand, in Things They Carried, O’Brien uses an episode before the war to portray its burden (Gioia and Kennedy 1). He narrates a personal story of how he was unwilling to go to Vietnam with the army after his summer job in a meat factory. With the help of a fishing lodge owner, he schemed how to escape to Canada. However, while in the lake bordering Canada, pressure overcomes him to comply with the call of obligation and serve the nation, rather than appear a coward. Instead of proceeding to Canada, he heads back home. This shows that he undertook the burden of war although he did not believe in it (Gioia and Kennedy 1). Similarities of Why War is a Tragedy Owen describes how soldiers marched asleep, limping and blood shod after losing their boots. They went blind, lame and deaf that they could not hear the explosions of attacks against them (Owen, Dulce). At this point, the reader will want to believe the war should end, but Owen describes an almost wicked persistence and intention of those in war to push ahead (Gioia and Kennedy 1). Their soaking blood, blindness and lameness, appear to be a critical enemy they must overcome to be victorious. The twist here is that soldiers appear to derive some fun from tragedy (Gioia and Kennedy 1). When Owen describes how his comrade’s eyes were writhing and face hanging, then follows by saying dying for one’s country is sweet, sounds like he is not remorseful. Similarly, in The Things They Carried, after Cross realizes his obsession with thoughts of Martha disillusioned him, he believes he was responsible for Lavender’s death. O’Brien points out that Cross’s thoughts of life with Martha after the war made him negligent of his responsibility as leader of Alpha Company (Gioia and Kennedy 1). The soldiers are also tortured by thoughts of being in the war as a result of guilt and fear of being termed cowards who could not fight for their country. Cross also experiences tragedy by ending his obsession for Martha through burning her letters. This is, however, too late for him because the obsession has already cost him one of his men. Like in Owen’s poem, the soldiers also joke of how Lavender carried marijuana and sedatives, saying he was probably too sedated to feel pain as he died (Gioia & Dana 1). They were also smoking his marijuana as they said this. Differences of Why War is a Tragedy Owen portrays tragedy in the first person fashion in his description of how he sees his friend dying after they flung him into a wagon (Gioia and Kennedy 1). He sees his comrade drowning in a green sea of gas. The same comrade becomes a figure of horror a moment later as he chokes to death. He portrays soldiers in war as capable of killing or being killed. On the other hand, in The Things They Carried, O’Brien mixes reflective thoughts of Cross’s obsession with Martha with Lavender’s death to express a sense of tragedy. He uses the items the soldiers carried in the calamitous circumstances to symbolize tragedy (Gioia and Kennedy 1). In conclusion, both authors regard the experience of war as a mixture of many ingredients whether pleasant or gruesome. There are inexperienced and uneducated soldiers who follow blindly while some are in a world of fakeness and falsities. They all mesh together in war to create a sequence of catastrophes that will end up in victory. They perceive the experience of war just in that sense: an experience. They both agree that these circumstances are only experienced by the soldiers in the battle fields, not the promoters of war. They portray it in a way that would not urge common individuals wish to risk the calamities of war for the sake of victory as it is not worth it. Work Cited Gioia, Dana and Kennedy, X. J. Literature. 2002. Web. 01 Dec 2012. Read More