A number of poems you have studied deal with negative experiences. Choose two poems and show how the poets create a sense of negativity.
Poetry expresses a variety of contrasting emotions both positive and negative such as love, hate, happiness and sadness just like William Wordsworth once said “poetry is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”. In both Owen’s “Anthem for Doomed Youth” and Brock’s “Five Ways to Kill a Man” are poems in which the poets recount to their readers meaningful negative experiences which had an impact on their life and attempt to portray their feelings which were once felt by using particular literary techniques to do so.
Wilfred Owen uses a number of emotions whilst writing “Anthem for Doomed Youth” expressing his disappointment, anger and sadness with the people back home. Owen describes the harsh realities of war and makes the reader realise that World War 1 propaganda is all a lie. “Anthem for Doomed Youth” solemnly discusses death in war and shows how those who die in war do not receive the normal ceremonies that are used to honour the dead and are shortly forgotten after their unknown death. In war, instead of honouring those who have fallen, more are being killed by the same weapons.
Owen describes the harsh scene which is faced by our young brave soldiers on the battlefield. The quote “die as cattle” shows the reality of the deaths of these young men, it compares the battlefield to a slaughterhouse where the soldiers die in large numbers and die insignificantly like cattle. The use of onomatopoeia and alliteration in the words “rifles’ rapid rattle” shows how the soldiers at war are facing a hectic battle and also recreates the sound of a battlefield, and the “monstrous anger of the guns” is also showing that the soldiers are forcefully shooting from their guns with intense emotion and feeling. Usually at funerals or ceremonies for the dead there are bells ringing and prayers being said, but Owen shows that in war...