The document discusses how different authors portray war through their works. It analyzes passages from poems by Pope, Shakespeare, Sassoon, and Owen that depict war as a game, bring suffering, or strip away one's identity. Pope portrays war as a masculine game to encourage enlistment. Shakespeare initially depicts it as a game between kings but later shows the brutality through Henry's threats at Harfleur. Sassoon and Owen emphasize the terrible suffering and aim to accurately depict war to warn those at home that it will not make one a hero.

1. POINT 1: WAR IS DESCRIBED AS A TEAM GAME IN POPE’S POEM – choose
three quotes (1 from the start, one from the middle and one from the end)
that are portraying war as a game and analyse them. Discuss why Pope
portrays war in this way (wants men to enlist). Ostracised from society and
emasculated if don’t join…
‘the biggest that’s played’ = superlative = exaggerate its importance =
not there then lose out
‘the red crashing game of a fight’ = violence but energy and exciting.
Game = masculine…
‘Out of the fun’ = not there then no part in shaping the world. Ostracised
from society
POINT 2: SAY HOW SHAKESPEARE ALSO USES THE METPAHOR OF A
GAME BUT DIFFERENTLY… war is described as a solo sport – a game of
tennis in Henry V Act 1 Scene 2. Set up the ‘match’ that will be played
over the course of the play. Choose three quotes (1 from the start, one from
the middle and one from the end) that are portraying war as a game and
analyse them. Discuss why Shakespeare portrays war in this way (wants
Henry to seem powerful). Has to prove himself worthy of being a divinely
chosen King.
‘match’d our rackets to these balls’ = will be equal in strength and power and
this sets up his motive for the play = to prove his worth as king as leader
‘play a set’ = extends the metaphor = ‘set’ = monosyllabic and plosive =
sarcastic and has a brittle and sharp edge to it… perhaps a warning of the
lengths which henry will go to guarantee his international status and to win
the game
‘balls to gunstones’ = he turns the insult to a threat on France.
‘a thousand widows’ = he directly threatens that the game will know no
bounds… the hyperbolic use of ‘thousands’ implies that the destruction will
be absolute
POINT 3: SHAKESPEARE DESCRIBES HENRY GOING TO WAR IN FRANCE
(AS HE SAID HE WOULD IN ACT 1 SCENE 2) AND ATTACKING HARFLEUR
YET WHEN THEY DON’T SUCCESSFULLY CONQUER IT HE THREATENS
TERRIBLE SUFFERING AGAINST THE PEOPLE IN ORDER TO WIN. Choose
three quotes (1 from the start, one from the middle and one from the end)
that are portraying war as bringing terrible suffering. Discuss why
Shakespeare portrays war in this way (wants Henry to seem ruthless?). Can a
Christian king behave in this way? Or is his just the nature of war and
Shakespeare is brave enough to show it?

2. ‘Naked infants spitted upon pikes’ naked = vulnerable (like France?)
spitted = very violent verb = disrespectful. Pikes = hard, cold and metallic =
represent war?
‘defile the locks of your shrill shrieking daughters’ = sibilant alliteration =
we are forced to hear the extent of their suffering
‘fathers taken by their silver beards and their most reverend heads
dashed to the wall’ silver = precious to represent the respect that should be
given to them in their wisdom BUT this is the reason that they are destroyed.
Dashed = disrespectful and graphic
POINT 4: SITT SASSOON ALSO SHOWS US THE SUFFERING THAT WAR
BRINGS BUT HE CREATES EMPATHY FOR THE VICTIM RATHER THAN
FOCUSING ON THE VICTOR. Say a bit about Sassoon and his declaration – he
wasn’t anti war but though that the level of suffering was unnecessary and
futile. Choose three quotes (1 from the start before he goes to war, one from
the middle in war and one from the end where the people at home are
pretending that the men are not suffering) that are portraying war as
bringing terrible suffering. Discuss why Sassoon portrays war in this way
(wants the reader to empathise with the ‘simple soldier boy’ and understand
how the degree of suffering is unmanageable)
‘who grinned at life in empty joy’ = grinned = childish verb = happy to be
alive and needs no reason (‘empty’)
‘winter trenches’ = seasons reflect his mood = everything is dying and no
hope again
‘with crumps and lice and lack of rum’ = list and repeated conjunction =
endless. Look at the items in the list = what do they tell you about physical
and psychological suffering
‘he put a bullet through his brain / no one spoke of him again’
Put = very ordinary and not dramatic = was not irrational – it actually
seemed like a rational decision = nothing to live for.
Why put the bullet through his brain rather than head? Destroy his thoughts?
People back home ‘cheer’ and are ‘smug faced’ but they send them to
‘hell’. Sassoon thinks that they should ‘sneak home’ = ashamed…
POINT 5: SHAKESPEARE SUGGESTS THAT SACRIFICING YOUR LIFE IN
WAR WILL MAKE YOU A HERO AND ELEVATE YOUR SOCIAL STATUS .
Choose three quotes (one from the start, one from the middle and one from
the end) that are portraying war as giving you a heroic status. Discuss why
Shakespeare portrays war in this way? Wants to make the Queen Elisabeth

3. look like she is from a family of brave and heroic leaders whom God favours,
even when they seem outnumbered.
Ideas:
1. Shakespeare suggest that by fighting in war you would share in the
honour (a privilege –doing God’s bidding) and become a hero (a negative
becomes positive in by using this triadic repetition)
‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers’ (look at plosive alliteration – it
sounds… Shy? Confident? Arrogant…?)
2. Shakespeare suggests that war would elevate your social status as you
stand next to the king ‘band of brothers’ - explore the word band and brothers
3. You would be proud to show that you were brave enough to face such
tough odds on St Crispian’s Day and come home victorious ‘strip his
sleeve and show his scars’ again turning negative to positive (scars become
badges of pride) look at the masculinity certainty of the verb ‘strip’
4. Shakespeare suggests that war makes you immortal as you become
part of the narrative of English bravery (stories told to show that the
English are brave). ‘This story shall the good man teach his son’ look at the
adjective ‘good’ and interesting that it is the that tell this story… why does the
father tell his son? To inspire him…? The exact reason why so many men enlisting
to fight in ww1. The war broke out on 28th July 1914 and by the first week in
September , 200,000 men were enlisting every week.
POINT 6: OPPOSITE TO SHAKESPEARE… MANY OF THESE WAR POETS
ACTUALLY FOUGHT IN THE WAR WHERE SHAKESPEARE NEVER DID.
THEIR AIM WAS TO WRITE THE ‘TRUTH’ ABOUT WAR… Give the
number enlisting when war started in 1914 and what they hoped they’d
gain from war. Many war poets present war as stripping individuals of
their identity. Ideas = one of many – the dehumanising machine of war…
Loss of masculinity… No name or importance…treated as animals or objects…
Opening sentence to adapt: Many of the poets who fought in WW1 saw their
role as poet to warn people back in England that war would not make you a
heroic or elevate your status as a young, influential male. It would do the
opposite.

4. Ideas:
1. Owen suggests that war emasculated you (took away your
masculinity) and he describes the soldiers as ‘knock kneed, coughing
like hags’. What technique is this? What are hags and why compare the
soldiers to them? What should the soldiers be like..? Are ‘hags’ part of
society or not? What will do to the soldier’s power and respect…?
2. Owen believes that you were not treated with respect but as you
suffered a horrific death you were ‘flung…[on the] wagon…’. Think
about that verb and about the ‘wagon’… a hero’s death? This quote is from
‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ by Owen
3. Owen portrayed war as stripping you of your physical strength; in
‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ he opens it by describing the men as ‘Bent
double, like old beggars under sacks’. Think about how this description
represents their vulnerability…apart from being exhausted (physically
and psychologically) what might make you bend double? What is the
weight that they are carrying?
4. Both Sassoon and Owen imply that the soldiers are not treated as
men but as a part of the machine of war. They do not give their
protagonists names (look at the lack of proper nouns in all three poems)…
why?
5. In fact, not only are the men nameless and emasculated by war but
they are dehumanised as Owen describes them, in ‘Anthem for
Doomed Youth’, as ‘[dying] as cattle’. What technique is it if it has like
or as? Why does he compare them to cattle? Think about the number and
the importance of cattle? What are cattle bred for?