This Essay has been reviewed with Feedback. Here is the Feedback
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Feedback From Teacher: The start of a good response but perhaps not thorough enough as not enough points or deep analysis is made. More balance between texts and being perhaps more analytical at times rather than descriptive, also the need of contextualising evidence in the essay. |
How Will I Move Forward: I will rewrite the essay using the feedback and going forward I will despite the more clearer analysis than last time in the IO, I will do more of this analysis and in-depth in future works such as future essays and IOs. |
Links to Extra Reading:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/may/01/carol-ann-duffy-poet-laureate
https://www.everypicture.org/we-are-making-a-new-world-by-paul-nash
Conflict and war have existed throughout human history, and different groups of different cultures and ideologies have gone against each other to battle for glory and for their people. These heroic and romanticized representations of war dominated the norm before the 20th century.The world World Wars completely shifted that notion and changed future wars and conflicts as a result. War artists such as Paul Nash and even more contemporary poets like Carol Ann Duffy have through their choice of expression to condemn and evoke the horrors of war. Carol Ann Duffy in her poem “Shooting Stars” in her collection from Standing Female Nude from 1985 deviates from her usual overt sexual poems with dark humour and instead shames the reader in our seeming forgetfulness of the tragedies of World War 2 and as a result, attempts to sympathise with the Jewish victims of World War II. Similarly, Paul Nash, as in many of his war landscape paintings, rejects the romanticism in favour of more abstract, cubist inspired art to express his deep horrors of world war I that warped nature unnaturally and terrorised human emotions. His juxtaposition of a hopeful title against the destruction in his painting aims to shy away from the celebratory and heroic depiction of war to condemn war itself. Although different in style, both Nash and Duffy forces us to reconsider our notions of war and to remember the horrors so that these atrocities are not to be committed again.
Firstly, Duffy coerces the reader to guiltiness in order to bring a small amount of hope and trust that the acts of savagery will never be committed again. By repeating the verbf“remember” as an imperative in the second stanza, Duffy underlines the need to not forget the brutality of the Holocaust. After the dramatic monologue expressing the silence, the marginalised voices of victims during WWII in the first stanza it leads to the commemorating these voices with bravery through the emphasis on “brave” and comparing them to “statues” that have connotations of remembrance. In the same second stanza, the repetition of the “remember” and the phrase the “forever bad” emphasises that the evilness of those past events can never be recorded no matter how much good tries to change what happened. Duffy aims to call for remembrance of these victims and giving these voices a more permanent and brave stature through her choice of words like “statues”. Furthermore, Duffy later on after grotesque imagery of rape and violence such as through “bowels opened in a ragged gape of fear” with small acts of hopeful imagery throuhg the symbolism of the “child” that gives at least some light in to the situation symbolising future hope and generations only to be lost as one is “shot in the eye”. There is continued torment and taunting by these soldiers onto these victims and at the same time, Duffy aims to directly involve the reader by addressing the reader using “you” and speaking for these marginalised voices. The poet, despite not having experienced the holocaust, aims to connect the present-day readers to the Nazis and victims of their acts of torture in the fifth stanza through the phrase of “history lesson” that replaces the “terrible moans” and “immense suffering” previously in the stanza. This shames the readers that despite expressing clearly how disgraceful it is to overlook the tragedies, implies that people still downplay or don;t understand the full extent of the savagery because of the harmless connotation of “history lesson”. Duffy, all in all, wants readers to still show sympathy despite the distance of time and even space that these tragic events happen so that this “acts of torture” don’t happen again like mentioned in the third stanza as “only a matter of days” sepearate these events conveying how near this acts can happen once again.
On the other hand, Nash’s juxtaposition of the title and the brutal and destructive depiction of war in his artwork challenges the heroic portrayal of mass wars that even in today’s modern world, brings back the cruel reality of WWI. Paul nash described his paintings as feeble and inarticulate which was not referring to the limitations of his skill as an artist but rather that he was unable to properly comprehend and express the scale and intensity of not only trauma but the suffering that he and others experienced during world war. “The Menin Road” as a title seems harmless which is juxtaposed to the wasted landscape. Similarly, previous titles such as “We are Making a New World” creates this juxtaposition because a new world implies hopefulness and new beginnings. We can see an almost similar irony in the choice of a road that could have easily been described as a road that no longer exists or barren wasteland or even more exaggerated with horror that would have fit in with the painting’s landscape. Instead the title gives no hint of any mutilation of a landscape instilled with horror. On the contrary, the rays of sunshine contrast the title by seeming unnatural and artificial despite being the sun. These rays resemble gun barrels creating a miserable, hopeless and horrific mood and atmosphere illustrating the illusion of escape or relief from the horror of war and the betrayal of nature. The two soldiers not only follow a road that no longer exists, but their ghostly appearance due to their featureless and expressionless faces implies the brokenness of war, as Nash could not depict the feelings of fair, anger, hopelessness and despair. There is a lot of space conveying the vastness of destruction, devoid of any organic life, as the earth and once lush vegetation is reduced to mud and pools of chemicals, waste and perhaps even dead bodies. These flooded trenches along with the stumps of trees and debris of all kinds that cover the foreground and midground have angular lines and unnatural shades of brown, grey, white and black challenges not only the title but the once perceived notions of war. These lines and shades, and the little to no colour contrast between the nature that is left and the ongoing war evokes the unnatural human input into the landscape that has warped nature into an alien landscape. Smoke that suggests ongoing destruction in the background as well as the two soldiers reveal the source and cause of the almost synthetic and abnormal topography and terrain. All in all, the painting is far from a celebratory depiction of war and instead depicts utter failure in humanity.
In conclusion, the events of WWI lead to even greater suffering in WWII but through the works of artists like nash, poets like Duffy and other individuals have allowed remembrance and continued shame that hopefully leads to less suffering in the world. Paul Nash as a war artist expressed through his juxtaposition of an ironically optimised title or at least no hints of destruction, and the barren, wasted and traumatising landscape to illustrate the horrors of war on both people and nature. Nash and Duffy have used their artwork and poem to give expression to the unutterable, overwhelming pain and mental exhaustion which ravished the minds of so many soldiers which was described medically during the time as shell shock or war neurosis, the precursor to PTSD which is still common of soldiers today from past wars in the Middle East and the Vietnam War. This, in turn, created this new culture and era in which war was no longer heroic but utterly unnecessary, brutal and the condemnation of war.
