Dulce et Decorum Est - Wilfred Owens Poem Essay Example for Free

Dulce et Decorum Est Wilfred Owens Poem Essay Dulce et Decorum Est Wilfred Owens renowned war poem for its frowning on the glorification on war, and The Last Night by Charlotte Gray, similarly depicting the effects of war on the unimpeachable youth, in prose form. Both are excellent representations of the devastation that war truly is and can only result in, and are both written in historical context, only Dulce et Decorum preceded the latter. Dulce directly juxtaposed another war poet, Jessie Pope, who romanticized the concept of it and really manipulated the patriotic conscience. The irony here is that the even after the former described the trauma that war produced, and the unacceptable manner in how people revered the act, the world went on to WWII. Which almost questions why did it happen, did not the destruction of the previous war play any guilt or effect on the countries leaders? Over the course of this essay, I aim to reveal the physical and mental effects of war as well as covering the idealism and the theme of slaughtering the innocents. In the beginning verse of Dulce, the author plays upon the image of a man walking. Contrastive to the propagandizing posters that were often seen at the time that rendered an erect, striding man holding a gun confidently- a picture of tired, old men is illustrated, which emphasizes the idea that they have aged far too quickly. Bent double, like old beggars and knock-kneed delineate a pigeon-toed figure suffering from pure fatigue an inadequacy to be what is defined as a soldier. In the simile, Coughing like hags, we cursed, we can hear the witch hoarseness of the cough the enigma here is the build-up this state if they have been simply marching through battles, like Jessie Pope presumed. A sense of utter sensory deprivation is conveyed through, Men marched asleep limped on, lame, all tired, drunk with fatigue, deaf even to the hoots. The immediate assumption here is that the men would, if given the choice, collapse in a heap of discomfort, subconscious, and fall asleep. The fact that they are compared to drunken men only accentuates their circumstance, a probable disparity between when they started out as recruits and this moment in the poem. They conjured up a web of deception, and empathy from us, as well as in The Last Night, when the children rest in deep sleep despite the appalling environment really showing their desperation for a moment of peace. The accumulation of all of this is that war has finally taken its toll, the young men evolving or more appropriately, regressing into haggard and withered creatures that have faced acute pain and loss. However, the change in pace within the stanza is evident when faced by death, we experience an ecstasy of fumbling, and this change in speed exposes their anxieties when in the full, frontal face of death, or perhaps the inexplicable torment of a gas attack, as they have seen their peers die in the hands of it before. As they fumble stressing the urgency of the situation not everybody manages to clamber on a gas mask in time. The poem is told from a first-person perspective, although this is not made clear at first, however, this allows us to interpret it from a first-hand simulation. The inevitability of the gas floating towards them like a death sentence is horrific -one soldier inhales it, and the devastating effects described in detail. We watch helplessly at him floundring like a man in fire or lime, which links to burnings at the stake, arguably the worst torture in existence. We see his eyes writhe in his face, a clear connotation of a loon, suggesting he is in an insane, maniacal state. And then his hanging face, like a devils sick of sin., only serves to show how much pain has been delivered. The men then fling him in a wagon which shows the dehumanization of the moment, and they watch him froth and gargle blood, twisting unnaturally. The incurable sores is exactly what it says, incurable. The physical effects are irrevocable, physically and mentally. Through use of emotive metaphors and similes, Owen molds an indubitably sickening portrayal of a suffering man, introducing the readers to the realities of war. Likewise, The Last Night also paints a picture of suffering, but in a far subtler manner. Unlike the soldiers in Dulce, the fate of these innocent, Jewish children is unavoidable for everyone, thus having a certain sadness to it. They have been sentenced to the gas chambers as well, and we can deduce that they will face like pain to the soldier in the previous paragraph, which, for a child, we all know is terrifying and never deserved. The pain we encounter in this extract is more that of basic deprivations, like food, water, and love too. We can understand that the children are exhausted because, despite the most likely uncomfortable surroundings, many of the children were too deeply asleep to be aroused. The children sleep in dung: the soft bloom of cheek laid, uncaring, shows a child with a tinge of rose in his cheeks, the sweetness and the unfairness of this trial he must endure. Again, they are reduced to an animalistic level, Jacobs limbs were intertwined with his [his brothers] for warmth.; this imitates two young, baby animals that lie together, unknowing of the worlds cruelties or the predators that stalk them. The children are ravenous and denied of sufficient food and drink, as they cluster around a woman holding out sardine cans for water, and as we know, these cans are remarkably slim and unsuitable to drink water from, especially when the can is passed around of a crowd. They are each provided with a sandwich, this severe rationing a punishment they do not deserve. The physical pain that is shown in this section of The Last Night is purely tiredness and hunger, two qualities good parents ensure their children are not. Their frail bodies find it difficult to withstand this, but the dramatic irony here is that their fate in store is much worse and absolutely inhumane. A shower of scraps was thrown towards them reiterates the animals they are being essentially treated as. As for the mental pain faced by the soldiers, it must surpass the physical by far. From the lies, to leaving their loved ones, the pain and the distant memories are even more difficult to face. Homesickness, when really experienced, can be a very intense and sad feeling, and this does not really raise any morale. One can only imagine their befuddlement when arriving to the trenches and wondering where their accommodation was. As continued from the previous, their mental velocity increased tremendously when in the face of adversity and death. This can only be expected, and is marked by the Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!. The mental anguish when they see their peer suffer but are utterly of no use in this is astounding, and the scene runs almost as a nightmarish sequence, as signified by Dim through the misty panes, and thick green light. In all my dreams before my helpless sight.. The dramatic verb drown is used, and they watch their former companion die in the sea of gas, they having escaped the same fate by only a second or two. This fact is enough to leave them in a state of momentary shock, and in the future, a play back of this episode is probably revisited by every soldier who saw the sight and regretted having being unable to help him in any way the same shock was experienced when all the Jews realized their time had come: a quickening of muscle and nerve in The Last Night. Through each line, we must remember whom the poem was addressed to, and we can sense some underlying bitterness. The triplet guttering, choking, drowning throws itself out with a dynamic impact. It wouldnt be expected for the children to know of their demise, but as seen in the excerpt, they seem to sense something wrong. This is why In the filthy straw, they dug their heels in and screamed. Instead of just struggling, they choose to scream, which reveals their internal uncertainties and distress. The metaphor dig means they are trying to fix themselves in the straw, and how they distrust the officers. They are forced towards and crammed in a bus, which again, brings back the animal-like treatment motif. As the adults wrote their possibly last messages which had no to little guarantee of delivery, some wrote with sobbing passion and some with punctilious care. Both adjectives suggest a degree of great mental turmoil, the only difference being the latter having some restraint. Yet there is a recognition of hopelessness in the atmosphere, the adults in the room sat slumped against the wall., the emotions going through them must have been complex, but ultimately, an increasing feel of nothing can be done, and giving up. This is not a movie where the resolution magically occurs, but this is a depiction of reality. As the officers call out their names alphabetically, in a standardized order, this shows how devoid of emotion or remorse they are, and how each child and each person is reduced to just another name. There is a nervous and tense atmosphere, it seems as if everybody is waiting for some justice to occur, but as we know, this does not happen. They are quickly thrown into the buses, the homely sound of a Parisian bus is somehow mocking to the whole scene. Probably the most heart-rending image is when a mother sees her child for the last time her eyes were fixed with terrible ferocity intensely open to fix the picture of her child, for ever. To see your child for the last time, to know of the death, to be able to do nothing about it, as in Dulce, there is the same sense of no faith or hope. The wails and screams of the women as they throw food towards the buses from the camp knowing the food will never reach, but desperately wanting to do something anyhow is the final time they will ever see their maternal figures, and the children are, precisely put, doomed. The fact that none of the officers act even merely touched by their fellow humans sadness is repulsive. Five municipal buses now stood trembling in the corner of the yard the buses are personified, which is a symbolic representation of their fear. The story concludes with the bus turning away, the headlights, for a moment, light up the cafà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ opposite before the driver turned the wheel and headed for the station. This glimpse of something perfectly normal spotlights the unfairness of it all on the children who at one time, had that other life. The theme of glory and innocence is well covered in Dulce. In fact, the title is sufficient, To die for your country, is a sweet thing. The poem runs on to contradict it, ending with, The old lie: Dulce Et Decorum Est, Pro Patria Mori. And we are forced to agree, having been witness to the preceding bloodshed. If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs thy friend, you could not tell with such high zest, to children ardent for some desperate glory, The Old Lie:, this quotation sums up all the contempt he has for any form of glorification of war, when really it is ones own sacrifice rather than an obligation. It has a tinge of instruction to it, almost as if he trying to convince her in an angry, forceful way, and if he said it verbally, it seems as if it would increase with volume. This is quite justified, as Jessie Pope idealized war as fun, and liked it to a game, and that anybody who chickened out was basically a coward. This induced such an outrage that Owen felt he needed to prove how nauseating the concept was. He addresses the soldiers as children, which somehow brings out their naivety and how easy it is to convince adults generally lie to children in order to mask the truth. The young men were obviously targeted for recruiting and decided to join more out of fear of mockery rather than pure patriotism. The concept of innocence in The Last Night is brought up quite often, the youngness of the children is stressed upon. For example, Some children were too small to manage the step up and A baby few weeks cot was crammed into the bus. If the children are too small to even step onto the bus themselves, and require support, and they really criminals or infested jews? They are too young to even know the reason for their death, and as soon as they came into this world, they were stolen just as quickly. They have no ability to reason, no ability to know of the dangers, no ability to believe in anything, yet simply because of their religion something they are most likely unaware of they have been sentenced to die and never experience any of lifes pleasures. If they havent learnt simple motor skills, how can they be expected to react to a gas attack? The pure horror of it can never be condensed it is like those horror stories materialized. Dulce and The Last Night are both classic pieces of history, genuine and likely more realistic records of those corrupt events that hopefully will not happen ever again. They are both timeless, and dark reminders of why war shouldnt happen, although pain is still inflicted, every second. These two pieces are a reminder that pain can never truly be prevented as that is how a few are wired to work and these few have the power to influnce many others. However, the main point the pieces try to bridge across is the innocence of the fighters who are more like pawns or victims and the superfluous glorification of war. Something that pains another should never be laughed or promoted in any form, as fundamentally, we are one species, we are the same, as Shylock in the Merchant of Venice so eloquently expressed. The quotation Do unto others as others would do unto you, applies to both concepts the writers try to draw, but in the end, the sadness in both renditions of war is the dehumanization and of course, the gruesome massacres, but mostly, the indifference. The indifference of the bystanders as well as the leaders.

Surplus :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Due to outstanding economic times we now face a federal budget surplus. This surplus is the first one since the mid sixties. Before now we have been in a federal deficit. Because our good situation we are face with a tough decision; what do we do with the extra money. Some people think we should put the money in government programs others think we should give it back to the people who gave the government the money. Giving the money back to the taxpayers appears to be the most logical thing to do with the surpluses.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The government has a moral obligation to give the money back to the taxpayers. The government does not have anything to spend the money on now. Just because we have the money doesn’t mean we have to spend it. We do not need to search for programs to spend our money on. Therefore we must give back the money while we still have it.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Tax rates are at an all-time peacetime high. When President Clinton took office, federal Taxes consumed 17.8 cents out of every dollar earned in the United States. Now the federal Government’s take is 20.6 cents out of every dollar. (USA Today) Budget projections indicate that over the next ten years, the federal government will have huge budget surpluses totaling about $3 trillion. If we have a surplus at a high tax rate, why can’t the government take what it needs and lower the tax rate? We need to lower taxes to a rate where the government does not take more than it needs. An example of how these types of practices are unheard of anywhere else is as followed; If I were to go to a bank and ask for a car loan of $10,000 and the car only costs $8,000 the bank would demand that I lower the loan amount to $8,000. Then I might say, â€Å"I can find other things to spend the $2,000 on†. The loan officer would laugh and say, â€Å"I’m sure you could but I can’t give you more that you need.† The people who oppose cutting taxes clearly believe that the money generated by federal taxes actually belongs to the federal government. Many of us who want the government to give the money back to the people believe that the money belongs to the people who paid the taxes and if they are paying more than we need to run the government, we should give it back.

Rise of Industry in the Late 19th Century

During the 1860’s America was in a period of economic hardship due to the ongoing demand for materials and money to fund the war. In the South, sufficient money and materials were hard to acquire because the southern economy still depended on the labor of slaves to produce their goods and income rather than factories. The Northern economy used numerous factories to produce goods and make profit for the war, but they still did not have technology that was advanced enough to easily produce all the necessary materials and money. After the civil war, America embarked on a journey of economic expansion and unification for the nation. In the late 19th century, government policies, technological advancements and population changes contributed to the rise of industry in America. Many government policies were created in the 19th century to encourage expansion and growth for America. Three very influential policies were the Homestead Act, the Pacific Railway Act and laissez-faire. The homestead act was passed by Congress in 1862 to encourage settlement of western land. It promised any citizen of the United States that was at least 21 years old a homestead of 160 acres under the terms that they paid a 10 dollar registration fee, farmed on the land for 5 years and lived on the land for at least 6 months out of a year. When passed, the act proved a success at allowing huge masses of people to further enlarge and develop America because â€Å"settlers from all walks of life including newly arrived immigrants, farmers without land of their own from the East, single women and former slaves came to meet the requirements† (Weiser). The pacific railway act of 1862 provided the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroad companies with federal land grants and funds to construct a transcontinental railway that would unite the country as one. With the completion of the railroad, industry had the opportunity to rise across America because the transportation time of goods, capital, and people was significantly decreased and more efficient. Laissez-faire was a policy practiced by government that preached a free market economy. Under laissez-faire, the business’s of America were able to grow and acquire larger sums of money because the government had little to no interference in the actions of companies. In the 19th century as settlement and companies expanded across America, technological discoveries were being made as part of an industrial revolution that would further the efficiency and growth of industry. With the transcontinental railroad, the steam engine could transport materials, machinery, goods and more to companies across America with much more ease than horses and wagons could in previous times. The invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 increased communication between people to help the coordination and cohesiveness of companies. One brilliant inventor, Thomas Alva Edison, provided the nation with numerous inventions, two of which were the light bulb and the electric generator. As industrialization occurred, machinery was used to produce materials instead of human labor in order to increase production and profit. With the aid of Edison’s electrical generator, the machines of textiles could work faster and more efficient to maximize benefits. Also, with the aid of the light bulb, textiles were able to have longer work hours and produce larger quantities because the restriction of daylight hours was no longer a problem. â€Å"By the end of the nineteenth century, the nation was about to become a mass-production economy† because â€Å"the utilization of steam and electricity, the introduction of improved processes and labor-saving machinery†¦ multiplied enormously the effectiveness of labor† (Chandler 277; George 50). As America was booming from government policies and new technology, population changes also took effect to contribute to the rise of industry. Population was steadily rising due to immigration, migration, and improved conditions of living. Millions of European and Asian immigrants came to America in search of a more promising and successful life. These immigrants created a growing work force that big industries took advantage of by using the minimally paid workers to help produce more for their companies. Along with westward migration in America, â€Å"In the post-civil war period, cities swelled in population as a twin migration of immigrants and rural Americans flocked to the glittering urban environment† (Riis 320). This urbanization solidified the transition of the nation from an agricultural economy to an industrial one. Also in the 19th century, population was at a high compared the past because of improvements in health care, a higher reproduction rate and a better standard of living. These population changes provided America with a large, growing consumer economy that allowed industry and business to thrive. Compared to previous times, America ended the 19th century at an all time high due to new government policies, technological advancements and population changes. With the help of federal encouragement to settle westward and unite the country, industry was able to expand to more places across the nation. In these numerous factories, textiles and other working places, new machinery and technology was used to produce greater quantities in a shorter amounts of time which allowed industry to gain more profit and grow. These successful and innovative factories attracted immigrants and rural Americans, and pushed them to move to cities where industry and business could be a main focus. The growth of American industry in the 19th century took the nation to a whole new developmental level, and from there the nation continued to thrive and evolve. Citations Chandler, Alfred D. The Beginnings of â€Å"Big Business† in American Industry. 1959. American Issues. New York: Glencoe, 1994. 277-80. Print. Evans, Harold. â€Å"The Spark of Genius. † 2004. American History. Vol. 2. Dubuque: McGraw Hill, 2007. 6-21. Print. George, Henry. â€Å"Progress and Poverty. † 1879. America's History. Fourth ed. Vol. 2. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001. 50-51. Print. Riis, Jacob. â€Å"Life in the Tenements of New York City. † 1890. Voices of the American Past. Second ed. Vol. 2. Orlando: Harcourt College, 2001. 320-22. Print. Story, Jill. â€Å"Lecture. † 27 Sept. 2010. Story, Jill. â €Å"Lecture. † 5 Oct. 2010. Weiser, Kathy. â€Å"The Homestead Act – Creating Prosperity in America. â€Å"Legends of America – A Travel Site for the Nostalgic and Historic Minded. Apr. 2010. Web. 12 Oct. 2010. .

Project Management A Project Manager - 2065 Words

A project is managed by a project manager. It has to be managed so there will not be any mistake during the production. A project manager has to be an organized, and enthusiastic person who can lead the project to success. A good project managers make the goal by their own and they use their skills and share their purpose to the project team. Becoming a project manager is difficult. They have a lot of roles to maintain the project running fluently. They should calculate all the things needed for the project, but they could not make any mistake. They also have to develop the trust and communication with the stakeholders, sponsors, and the project team members itself. They work under pressure and have to adapt with the environment. As they have to get the trust from the sponsors and stakeholder, they have to determine and manage the budget cost of the project, so the money will not be wasted. The budget have to be accurate and effective, and to know about that, the project managers have to understand about the types of costs, some methods for estimating the costs, and the timing and variety of the cost estimates. Also the project managers have to know about the basics of budgeting and make sure about what they want to do for the project. There are 4 types of costs which used as the criterion of budgeting cost by the project manager. There are Fixed Versus Variable Costs, Direct Versus Indirect Costs, Recurring Versus Nonrecurring Costs, Regular Versus Expedited Costs, andShow MoreRelatedProject Management : A Project Manager Essay1533 Words   |  7 PagesIn project management, there are many methods to handle how the project should be completed, how an ethical situation should be handled, what types of decisions should be made. 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