Compare The Charge Of The Light Brigade And Exposure By...

In the poems ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ by Alfred Lord Tennyson and ‘Exposure’ by Wilfried Owen, both poets incorporate ideas of patriotism to convey a message about the futility of war. This is revealed in many similar and different ways: One of the ways in which poets present the ideas of patriotism is in the loss of hope as the war progresses, which patriotism helps to could help overcome in one war, but not another. For example, the soldiers don’t lose hope despite the mistake made by one of the commanders in ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ due to their patriotic views as seen through the words: ‘Theirs but to do and die’ †¦ ‘Into the Valley of Death’. The words ‘but to do and die’ suggest that the soldiers were so patriotic†¦show more content†¦Similarly, Owen uses the concept of the futility of war in ‘Exposure’ to highlight patriotism through the words ‘merciless iced east winds that knive us’. The metaphor of the weather in ‘winds that knive us’ conveys the way in which the soldiers are facing another battle against another force in war, which is suggested to be their false beliefs of patriotism in the connotation ‘What are we doing here?’. Owen uses the rhetorical question in ‘here?’ to demonstrate the ways in which the soldiers feel that they have been betrayed by their false perception of patriotism, which highlights the potential propaganda set out during the beginning of the First World War, highlighting the true futility of why they were fighting a battle against nothing, as the ‘wind’ is just a force which is air. A third way in which the poets present ideas of patriotism in their poems is through the different references of the legacy that the soldiers carry. This is presented by Tennyson through his last stanza, which states ‘When can their glory