To represent some of the imagery in Stanza 1 of Dulce et Decorum Est, I decided that I would make two original GIFs that would show some of the situations that are faced by the poet and the soldiers in this stanza.
In this GIF I chose to represent the lines: "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge.".
I have represented these lines through the shadows of soldiers who are bent over with exhaustion. I chose to represent the soldiers by shadows to show that these men are but a small piece of the men they once were. The soldiers crossing the image is meant to represent their journey home and their little movement shows the struggle of that journey. |
The flares in the background are representing the flares that are 'haunting' the men. In the poem 'haunting' is used to describe how the flares hang in the air like ghosts. I have chosen to position them so that they appear to look like the eyes of ghosts floating across the sky, spying on and haunting the soldiers as the trek back to camp. The movement of the flares compared to the lack of movement of the soldiers shows the difficulty of the journey and terrain that the soldiers are faced with and the exhaustion that they feel which limits their ability to move swiftly.
This GIF represents the line "Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.".
I chose to use this background as it shows the conditions that the soldiers had to deal with, the muddy terrain covered in craters from shells was all that could be seen. The shell that comes in is representing all the Five-Nines which are the 5.9 inch diameter shells that were used by the Germans to deliver Chlorine gas. As such I have made it so that the shell does not explode when it hits the ground, merely sprays earth up, because these shells didn't explode, they released the gas when they hit the ground. |