My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
There was a poem titled 'The Call' that encouraged young men to enlist in the military and fight in the war. Glory and Honor. This may have been a sort of rebuttle to the poems writer, and their supporting audience.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, — My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
The finally stanza of Owens poem hits the reader hard. He tells the reader that if they had seen what he had, or shared in his experience, they wouldn't be as jubilant about Cheering for those in the war. And to those who encourage young people who romanticize the heroic idea presented to them.
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime. — Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning
Owens really personalizes his impact of the poem. He tells us what he sees of the man dying. Using the metaphorical comparison of a man drowning undewater. And mentions "misty panes" arif he is watching the scene unfold through acfogged window.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling
Owens brings us the soldiers sense of panic as they are alerted, he uses the term ectasy to emphasis the soldiers running about to grab masks and helments in an almost frenzied trance. Unable to think or process anything else happening other than the need to self preserve.
Once, in the cellar, I found two wrapped in newspaper, forgotten and not yet ripe.
I feel like there is a deeper meaning behind this life. His teacher did not have patience in his learning new vocabulary, she also did not have the patience to wait for the persimmon to ripen before giving them to her students. In contrast, he patiently teaches Donna Chinese, and also seeing the unripe persimmon he took the to his window to patenting wait for them to become ripe.
not knowing the difference between persimmon and precision. How to choose persimmons. This is precision.
I like the way he starts his poem here. Yes, he starts off showing his struggle learning a new vocabulary. But here he gives us his first example of how he learns the difference between similar sounding words. By putting them into a statement that would be hard to mix up.
reaching into her straw bag to eat handfuls of puffed rice. It feltthrough her fingers, leaving a zigzagging trail, causing a monkey to leapdown from a tree and devour the little white grains. In search of more,the monkey began to follow Mrs. Das. Others joined him, so that she wassoon being followed by about half a dozen of them, their velvety tailsdragging behind
The puffed rice is a symbol of Mrs. Das's decisions and her heart. No matter how much of the puffed rice she eats it isn't a substantial source of nutrition and is bland. While her kids try to engage with her, Mr. Das tries to get her to join for pictures she just doesn't care. She's attractive but empty inside. Like the puffed rice, no matter how much her family puts in effort, she isn't able to offer anything in return.
ouwon’t be in the pictures.""Pretend I’m there.""But we could use one of these pictures for our Christmas card thisyear. We didn’t get one of all five of us at the Sun Temple.
Mr. Das again shows the motif of seeing. He wants a family picture as a souvenir and possibly for the family Christmas card. But he wants an image that isn't true to state of his marriage and family. He tends to only see anything through his camera UT he's missing the reality around him.
. The fam-ily looked Indian bnt dressed as foreigners did
I think this is the beginning of the theme revealed. Romanticism, however Kapasi and Das view the other in a different manner, and ultimately mistake the true intentions of the other.
Mr. Das took a pictureof a barefoot man, his head wrapped in a dirly turban, seated on top of acart of grain sacks pulled by a pair of bullocks. Both the man and thebullocks were emaciated
One of the motifs of the story is about seeing and perspective. For Mr. Das he has many views through his lens and at the same time it doesn't bother him. Like with the man, he took his picture while ignoring the man's reality. This could be a way of hinting at how he views his marriage.
Briefly, in the rain, Lieutenant Cross saw Martha's grayeyes gazing back at him. He understood.It was very sad, he thought. The things men carried inside.The things men did or felt they had to do.He almost nodded at her, but didn't.
This seems to be his goodbye to the life he had before and the love he dreamed of. If it weren't for 'the things men carried' or 'felt they had to do' they wouldn't have been at war, he wouldn't have lost men. But that was his present reality, he had to let his fantasy of Martha go.