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The Sentry (Imagery of Setting ("Hammered on top" - auditory…
The Sentry
Imagery of Setting
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"choked up the steps too thick with clay to climb" - the mud is difficult to move through, they are trapped in the trench by their enemy and their environment
"left their curse in the den" - the word den has connotations of animals and is used to dehumanise the soldiers and show that they feel out of place in their setting (German dug-out) #
"What murk of air remained stank old and sour" - creates an image of an atmosphere that is composed of bomb gases moreso than oxygen; the vocab of "old" and "sour" hint at the decay and death surrounding the soldiers
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Assignment of Blame
"but I forgot him there" - Owen feels responsible for the death of the sentry as his superior and portrays this by using language and vocabulary that feels insufficient to describe the loss of a life, such as 'forgot,' this framing the sentry and other lives lost in war as disposable #
"Rain... kept slush waist high" - although more explicit in other Wilfred Owen poems, Owen has repeatedly used the image of nature itself crying out in resistance to the unnatural act of war, and in the sentry, the soldiers are battling the elements just as much as they are battling the weather
"sending a scout to beg a stretcher somewhere" - the word beg indicates that there is a shortage of medical supplies which leads to further needless loss of lives
"left their curse in the den" - there is no avoiding the pain nor the death, the soldiers on the battlefield are doomed to it
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