Essay on the poems "woodchucks" and "dulce "

Angela Y. Griggs
In the poems “Woodchucks” and “Dulce et Decorum Est” both Owens and Kumin use the spoken word as a vehicle to drive us straight into the world of warfare and consumption. Owens, an eventual victim of World War 1, pulls us inside the soldier’s mind and forces us to look at the rawness of killing. In “Dulce,” from the first line “bent double, like old beggars under sacks,” the reader is told of the burden of war and how it can wear the body down. On the same token, in “Woodchucks” the narrator spirals into a homicidal rage that eventually becomes a burden because the narrator is consumed with the need to kill. In both poems the authors conveys murder as a means of protection of hearth and home. Initially the use of death as a method of protecting one’s property or country seems almost noble. The human condition makes us feel almost justified in using any means necessary to carry out some type of justi...