Is my speech good?

“The Next War'' was written in 1917 by Wilfred Owen and is a sonnet. Owen has written many poems on war. In his poem, he does not talk about how death is painful and how soldiers are brave and what they could do for their homeland but he gives his perspective on how death could is a great companion of the soldiers. When Owen was writing “The Next War '' he was being treated for shell shock in a hospital. The first two lines in the poem “War's a joke for me and you, Wile we know such dreams are true” was written by Sassoon who is also a poet and who writes poems on war. These two lines inspired Owen to write this poem. In this poem, Owen talks about the horrors, effectiveness and aim of the war. This poem is about a soldier that describes his and other soldiers' relationship with death. The theme of this poem is to look into the future where the soldiers would fight against death so they could save our lives. In this context, I will be identifying how Owen’s perspective and the literary devices used in the poem shows how war has affected him and his fellow soldiers, which represents the global issue of war, and particularly the tragic idea that death is viewed as an escape from the brutal realities of fighting.

In the poem, Owen has used several stylistic devices to tell people how horrific and terrible war is. The first stylistic device he chose to use was alliteration. For example, the poem said, “We whistled while he shaved us with his scythe.” The repetition of the letter “w” shows alliteration. This line means that the soldiers whistle while facing death and they sometimes also dance. “Scythe” is a tool that is used for cutting and is normally carried by a grim reaper and in this poem it represents death. Another example of alliteration he used in this poem was when he said “We laughed at him, we leagued with him” here he used the letter “L” two times. This line means that the soldiers would laugh at death and were friendly with it .The reason Owen uses alliteration is that it sounds pleasing to the readers and also because he wants to grab the audience’s attention.

Throughout the poem, he has also used metaphor as another stylistic device. For example, the poem says “spilling mess tins in our hand” which is an example of a metaphor. The “spiling mess” refers to the soldiers’ blood that is laying on the battlefield. Another example is the “green thick odour of his breath”. This line describes the gassing that was in the WWI and how it is green and thick. The word “odour” means to have an unpleasant breath. So the soldiers had to suffer and die because of the breath the gas had .This line is used to make the reader feel sympathy for the soldiers since they have become friends with something evil which is death. The soldiers live with death and sometimes it is negative aspect for them when one of their fellow soldiers have been killed but the death of the combatants is good which leads them to victory.

Lastly, Owen has shown clearly that he used personification in this poem. For example, when the poem described “death” as a friend of the soldiers he describes someone you could hang out with, eat with and sleep with. He describes “death” as a best friend of the soldiers. This can connect with the reader easily since being friends with death is unusual. This line then grabs the attention of the reader because being friends with death is something weird and strange. Owen uses personification to compare death as a friend of soldiers which is something weird and unusual.

In conclusion, Owen used many different types of literary devices such as metaphor, personification and alliteration in order to show how the war affected him and also other soldiers. This makes the reader feel bad for the soldiers as to how death is common for them and how they are not afraid of death. The soldiers think that instead of suffering in the war and facing injuries it is better to die.The global issue,of death as an escape of reality from war relates to the 21st century because the conflicts still happen now, many soldiers have been sent to war, where many of them don’t come back home. For example, in Syria and Yemen war is still being fought where thousands of soldiers die.