Explore the ways in which two writers you have studied effectively portray dramatic events and their consequences.
Across the texts I have been studying, the notions of freedom, conflict and human relationships have been the most pertinent, such as in Maya Angelou’s Still I rise. The persona in the poem talks about how “out of the huts of history’s shame, I rise” and how she is the “dream and hope of the slave”. The poem tells of her yearning of freedom and suggests a positive ending. However, in The Necklace, Mathilde’s dreams are extremely different as she dreams of “silent antechambers hung with oriental tapestries” and “exquisite dishes served on fabulous china plates”: her story explores the consequences of being shallow and materialistic. Many of the narrators in the stories contemplate a dramatic event and the consequences of them and in The Story of an Hour, Mrs. Mallard “died of heart disease” while Mathilde, in The Necklace, is forced to live in poverty after losing a necklace.
For my assignment on dramatic events and their consequences, I chose Disabled and The Bright Lights of Sarajevo. I chose Disabled because it impacted me as I empathised with the man due to the juxtaposition between his idea of the war before and then the horrific reality which leaved him as a triple amputee, which is an obvious dramatic event. Consequences such as hopes of death, depression and trauma follow. I chose The Bright Lights of Sarajevo because it evokes a feeling of underlying hope and optimism in the reader, in the shape of a relationship between two people despite the tragedy around them. I chose these two poems because even though they are writing about the similar events, both have different experiences so the way they write about the consequences is different and I was drawn to this.
Disabled is a poem that exemplifies the juxtaposition between propaganda that men were sold and the reality of war. From a retrospective view, Owen deals with the consequences faced of going to war such as the loss of his youth, physical disabilities and depression. The Bright Lights of Sarajevo describes a society brutalised by civil war but still celebrates the ongoing spark of love. The poet uses one night in the city to present an unvarnished, graphic recount of the horrors of war that lay claim to the lives of the city’s innocent civilians.
Disabled is a poem that exemplifies the juxtaposition between propaganda that men were sold and the reality of war. From a retrospective view, Owen deals with the consequences faced of going to war such as the loss of his youth, physical disabilities and depression. In Disabled, a man is sitting “in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark”. We learn that he hopes for death and not life. The narrator describes his injuries by saying that he is “legless, sewn short at elbow” – these are injuries caused by going to war. Owen goes on to talk of how before the war, the town “used to swing so gay” and how “girls glanced lovelier” but now, after returning from the war as a triple amputee, “all of them touch him like some queer disease”. By using the phrase “threw away his knees”, the narrator makes his injury (a consequence of going to war) seem as if it was his choice. He then goes on to mention how before he became a soldier, an artist wanted to draw his youthful face but now “he is old; his back will never brace”. He knows that “he’s lost his colour” and “poured it down shell-holes” hence implying that he voluntarily sacrificed his blood. Retrospectively, he wonders why he joined the war in the first place. He remembers that he was happy and drunk “after football” and that he wanted to “please his Meg” and “to please the giddy jilts”, hence suggesting that he joined purely for vanity and glory not for ethical or political reasons. Then comes the juxtaposition between the propagandist glory of war that the men were sold and the reality. Once “they had written his lie”, the narrator gets lost in his imagination thinking of “jewelled hilts” and “smart salutes”. This is what he believed the war would be like. He talks of how he “was drafted out with drums and cheers” but then when he came back from war “some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal” thus indicating that he was greeted in a half-hearted way. The capitalised “Goal” is significant as before the war, his life was on target. What should have been his greatest achievement, coming home from the War, was greeted with a lukewarm response. The narrator then realises how bleak his future will be. He says the he will “spend a few sick years in institutes” and do what things the rules consider wise” – this tragic statement references the misunderstand of mental health back then especially of the deeper feelings of disfigured soldiers. The “pity they may dole” suggests that he is a victim and that it is not honourable anymore as he is on the “dole”. He notices that “women’s eyes passed from his to the strong men that were whole”, hence ironically saying that he has gone from being popular and well-liked to feeling isolated and depressed. So, by going to war, the consequences that he faced such as becoming a triple amputee, feeling lonely, the loss of his youth and just by his suffering, Owen is able to provide clear juxtaposition on the tarnished idea of war versus the reality of it by showing the horrific and tragic consequences on a man but what makes this poem fascinating is its universal quality.
The Bright Lights of Sarajevo describes a society brutalised by civil war but still celebrates the ongoing spark of love. The poet uses one night in the city to present an unvarnished, graphic recount of the horrors of war that lay claim to the lives of the city’s innocent civilians. However, interspersed through the tragedy is an undercurrent of hope, that takes shape in the form of a blossoming romance between two youths. The poem is written in 3 stanzas of unequal length. In the first stanza, Harrison initially describes the war-torn city as a tragic place where people are “queuing with empty canisters of gas” and “queuing for the precious meagre grams”. We also learn that the people in Sarajevo must also be “dodging snipers on the way” hence telling us that due to there being a war, innocent civilians are facing everyday (potentially fatal) trials just for basic amenities. The three adjectives used to describe the people queuing for bread emphasise just how small the amount really is. The gas is “wheeled home in prams” suggesting that it is a precious as a child. Gathering water involves hard physical labour as they are “struggling up sometimes eleven flights of stairs with water”. The present participles and verbs used when Harrison is describing their daily life, suggests a difficulty of living and the war is a dramatic event. Initially, Harrison builds up a war-torn city with desperate people, this is what most people would expect. The structural juxtaposition at “but tonight in Sarajevo, that’s just not the case” divides the stanza into day and night and emphasises the change that the city undergoes at night. The quote “black shapes impossible to mark” means that the snipers cannot shoot people, so they come out and use the night as their shield. The repeated use of “stroller” to describe the walker’s gaits and the alliteration in ‘stroller’s stride’ suggest that the young people are carefree and unhurried. In the dark, all ethnic tensions are eliminated, as it is impossible to tell people apart. This is further emphasised as Harrison says, “you can’t distinguish who calls bread hijleb or hleb and who calls in kruh”. Harrison then humanises the story by explaining the peculiar courting ways. The words “tender radar” and “dark shape” make it clear that Harrison is aware of the irony and juxtaposition in this love story and how war is interspersed with everything that goes on in the city, including love. The spark of love is described as a “lighter to a cigarette”. This humanises the story as there is a spark that everyone can relate to.
In the second stanza, Harrison talks about a couple and intersperses that with the civil war going on. The narrator becomes a witness in the second stanza as shown by him saying “I see”. The young couple at the place of a bombing some years ago are pictured as walking away from the site, and metaphorically this can be seen as the younger generation walking away from the horrors of the war towards an optimistic future. Harrison uses highly graphic language such as “shell scars”, “mortars massacred” and “blood-dunked crusts” to bring out an emotive response in the reader. The harsh sibilance and the use of the noun scar, which is a reminder of pain, with the harsh consonance in “mortars massacred” and visual imagery of blood combined with the plosive p and d sounds in “blood dunked crusts” create a profoundly shocking image of a normal image that has been tarnished with the actual image. Harrison also consistently uses iambic pentameter which symbolises the pulse in a heart which is helping life go on. Towards the end of the second stanza, Harrison writes with alliteration and many compound adjectives such as “death-deep, death-dark wells” to emphasise that the boy is looking at something so beautiful but in the most harrowing setting. The poet’s serene description of Nature, reinforced with mention of the Pleaides (a cluster of stars visible to the naked eye), also draws sharp contrasts with the horrific violence. The poem ends on the shortest stanza, which paints a picture of tenderness and care. The repeated alliteration in the line of ‘coffee in a candle-lit café’ as well as the mention of ‘sharing’ and ‘holding hands’, brings to mind connotations of traditional romance. However, Harrison makes the scenario more realistic by saying that he “holds her hand behind AID flower sacks” as we are once again reminded that despite a society impacted by a barbaric war, the spark of humanity and of love, continues to glow.
In Disabled Owen uses a slow iambic pentameter throughout the poem which perhaps signifies the uncomfortable struggle that the man faces. Owen links the narrative from verse to verse by overlapping rhyme patterns into new stanzas. The bringing together of “veins ran dry” and the “purple sported from his thigh” of the injured man with the “shoulder-high” triumph of his glory days distils the pity. In line 12, the word “hands” has nothing to rhyme to and this is significant as it emphasises how the warmth from the girls’ hands will never again be experienced by the disabled man. Owen evokes the halting search of the man’s memory for the reasons he went to war by employing frequent caesura in the fourth stanza such as “He thought he’d better join. – He wonders why.” The light glottal g sound in “girls glanced” adds a light feeling to emphasise the happiness and hope there was in his life. In the first stanza, Owen uses little colour to describe his emotions and this is symbolic of his feelings of depression and loneliness. The transferred epithet “ghastly suit of grey” further emphasises the lack of colour in the man emotionally and mentally. In the last stanza the rhetorical question “Why don’t they come?” is repeated. It is striking as it has connotations with a child asking for its parents, hence emphasising his emotions and the iambic pentameter (symbolises his heartbeat) can be seen as the only thing that’s left of him after the final line.
Disabled and The Bright Lights of Sarajevo are similar as they are both about people who have experienced war, but they are different as the people react in different ways, with different attitudes to life, due to their experiences of war. On the whole, The Bright Lights of Sarajevo has a positive and hopeful outlook beyond the war yet in Disabled Owen writes from an intense personal point of view since he was a soldier in the war and suffered physical, moral and psychological trauma yet Harrison was only an outsider looking in on the civil war. The consequences in The Bright Lights of Sarajevo are seen from a narrative perspective yet in Disabled the consequences of going to war are his own. The meaning of the poems are very different as The Bright Lights of Sarajevo focuses on hope yet in Disabled the outlook is very bleak and is explicitly anti-war. Both poems use iambic pentameter to symbolise that the heartbeat replicated by the rhyme is the only thing that continues.
In conclusion, Owen has portrayed going to war as a dramatic event and the consequences have been inflicted upon him yet in Harrison’s poem, the dramatic events are the war and the bombings, yet he cannot feel the consequences, he can only see them. Harrison portrays the consequences in a much more positive way than Owen does as he focuses on the spark of love and humanity despite war, yet Owen writes in a more melancholic and bleak way.
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