I believe that out of all the World War 1 readings, The Deserter\u00a0by Winifred Letts has left me with the strongest impression, as it is a very detailed and emotional poem, which made me reflect and truly understand the fear soldiers experienced during the war.\u00a0This poem is about a young English soldier and his extreme fear before going into no man’s land against the German soldiers. In it, it describes how his whole body is shaking, how his breath is fast, and his eyes are wide, full of fear. The poem also highlights how\u00a0he had lied about his age to join the war, wanting to seem brave and match the soldiers’ courage. Reading this made me realize he was underage and made me think about how young and unprepared he was for the horrors of war. It also\u00a0made me reflect on myself, as we might have been close in age, and I couldn\u2019t imagine being put in that situation. While reading, I imagined how terrified and vulnerable I would feel knowing that at any moment I could be killed or injured, and how the fear would paralyze me, knowing that I have no choice but to cross into a path that is full of bombs and bullets, where I have no control over whether I will die or survive. This, along with\u00a0comparing him to a frightened hare, really showed me how vulnerable and frightened he which only made me feel more emotional, empathetic and understanding of why he decided to run back even more. \u00a0Not only this, but\u00a0The poem also shows the mother\u2019s perspective, which added another layer of sadness\u00a0as She believes her son died fighting in the battle, which made me emotional because i imagine it probably brought her comfort, thinking he died for something meaningful, even though she doesn\u2019t know he was actually killed by his own side for trying to turn back. This\u00a0also reminded me of how soldiers were forced to shoot their own, which was something I had seen in the documentary They Shall Not Grow Old and in my Individuals and Societies class, which helped me visualize what was happening in that moment of the poem, making it even more realistic.\u00a0Overall, this poem left an impact because it described the details of fear in war, helping me to understand and picture it in my mind better, while also showing two perspectives of grief, which helped me reflect and\u00a0feel the emotions of the characters even more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I believe that out of all the World War 1 readings, The Deserter\u00a0by Winifred Letts has left me with the strongest impression, as it is a very detailed and emotional poem, which made me reflect […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wwi-literature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericmacknight.com\/english10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericmacknight.com\/english10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericmacknight.com\/english10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericmacknight.com\/english10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericmacknight.com\/english10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16801"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericmacknight.com\/english10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16806,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericmacknight.com\/english10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16801\/revisions\/16806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericmacknight.com\/english10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericmacknight.com\/english10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericmacknight.com\/english10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}