I think that this video shows part of the horrors of war that
probably Owen went through in his life. I think that the soldier with
eyeglasses from the video is playing Owen’s role in the sense that he sees
other men dying and asks for help but no one came because of such destruction.
I think that if a man who had fought in the WWI had asked for help or
denounced the horrors of war, he would have been treated like a coward. For
Owen, his only outlet was his poetry. That was the way in which he told the old
lie: that is proper to die for your country. In this way, he demystified the idea that war
is a glorious thing and revealed the truth of what war really is about.
There’s a moment where the soldier with eyeglasses is desperately
asking for help to captain Smith but there’s no answer. I think that Owen felt
that way. Society, institutions, Church, etc.,
could not give him an answer.
I agree with you, Antonella. As you said, this video shows some of the horrors Owen endured in the first World War, and the soldier with glasses could indeed be compared to Owen in the sense that both experienced firsthand the horrors of the war, and probably the soldier shown in this video would have felt the same way Owen did had he participated in the first World War, which would have led him to a "radical scepticism in the face of received beliefs..." (Punter, 2007).
ResponderBorrarMoreover, if we question received beliefs, we are also questioning the institutions that promote them, such as the ones you mentioned.
It is in this scepticism towards received beliefs such as the old lie that it was an honor to die for one's country ("dulce et decorum est/pro patria mori") and towards the institutions that promoted such beliefs where one of modernism's main characteristics lies--the scepticism towards received beliefs and instutitions.
Finally, I would like to add that I really liked the relation you established between the lack of answers from institutions and the lack of answers to SOS messages from the soldier with glasses in this video because as is Sargent Smith, I think the institutions at that time were "dead" or expired (their beliefs and explanations couldn't suffice the questions aroused in the modernist era).