Pride, death and war are three items that always seem to go together. People take pride in going to fight for their countries and especially show pride if their country wins the war. Death is inevitable, but your fate can possibly come sooner in war. War combines pride and death into something that could be hard to talk about. George W. Bush’s “Address to the Nation on the Terrorist Attacks” and Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce Et Decorum Est” both deal with pride, death and a form of war. George W. Bush’s address was from the year 2001 after the terrorist attacks of September 11th. After the attacks in September, the United States invaded Afghanistan on October 7th, 2001. Later on March 19th, 2003 the United States invaded Iraq (Salem Press 2063). The soldiers invading those two countries could have had experiences like the soldier in Owen’s “Dulce Et Decorum Est”. Written in 1917, Owen’s poem is a soldier’s point of view from World War 1 who is fighting in the trenches (Williamson). Although Bush’s speech and Owen’s poem were written in different time periods, they both discuss similar subjects: pride, death and war. Bush glamorizes the war with his positive attitude while Owen is looking at the gruesome, harsh realities that come with war. 

The diction of both of these works is very strong. However, the words chosen to be used are for different emotions. Bush’s overall diction in his speech is positive. Bush says, “American has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time” (Bush 534). He wants to keep the American people relatively calm for the future even though the attacks had happened earlier that day. He uses words such as “freedom”, “powerful”, “strong”, and “protect” along with many other positive words that evoke a positive emotion and optimism for the future. Bush also quotes Psalm 23 which states, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me” (Bush 534). Everything Bush says is important because it evokes pride in the American people. He does say the words like “evil”, “enemies” and “terrorist” which evoke scared emotions, but he overshadows those words with the positives. Owen does the polar opposite of Bush. Owen chose to use words such as “blood”, “helpless”, “desperate” and “cursed” which evoke gruesome and frightening images. The narrator has nothing positive to say about the war and or the experience he is going through. The narrator says “To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est, Pro patria mari” (Owen lines 26-28). If those last two lines were translated into English, it would say “The old lie: It is sweet and honorable, To die for one’s country”. Owen’s narrator is warning all the people wanting to go into war solely for the image of pride for one’s country is wrong. It is going to be nasty and brutal and the people would not leave the war with feelings of pride. Both authors use of diction represent their ideas of pride in extremely different ways. 

Imagery of death is more apparent in Owen’s poem rather than Bush’s speech, however both works have it. Throughout Owen’s piece, the reader is able to feel as though they are down in the trenches fighting with the soldiers. One line that has strong imagery of a man dying says, “He plunges at me, guttering, chocking, drowning” (Owen 16). This line gives the reader the image of someone dressed in uniform coming at them for help to stay alive. Another line with strong imagery of death from Owen’s poem says, “If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood, Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs” (Owen 21-22). Those lines make the reader hear someone struggling to survive. The person is chocking to death on their own blood and the soldier just has to sit there and listen to it. Owen uses this imagery to show the people what war is really like. Most people admire the soldiers who put their lives on the line for the country, but they do not truly understand what it means to fight in a war. The only people who truly know a gruesome death are the soldiers battling in war themselves. In Bush’s speech to the nation he uses imagery about death, but not nearly as much as Owen. One line from Bush’s speech reads, “The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures collapsing, have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness and a quiet, unyielding anger” (Bush 533). The reader is able to imagine seeing the planes causing so much disaster and death. This quote does not represent what would happen in war. It represents a deliberate attack on the people. Bush has emotion in what he says, however it is bland for the reader. That is the only death imagery he uses during his speech. Bush sees the deaths from the attacks as a way to seek revenge. By him sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, he does not understand what the soldiers are actually dealing with when they are fighting. Owen’s narrator sees the deaths around him every day and understands what it truly means to die fighting for your country. Although both of these pieces have imagery about death, Owen uses it much stronger than Bush.

Lastly, both works have figurative language throughout. Their phrases do not necessarily have anything to do with each other, however, both authors use those devices a lot. Owen uses a variety of devices such as similes, hyperboles, and personification. An example Owen uses of personification is, “Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time” (Owen 10). The adjective clumsy, personifying the helmets might possibly represent the clumsiness of the soldiers not being ready when the gas was being released on them. Therefore, their unpreparedness could have caused them to die. Owen uses multiple similes throughout his poem possibly to make the reader really understand what it would be like to be a soldier fighting in those conditions. For example, the narrator says, “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge” (Owen 1-2). Owen is trying to make his readers understand what it is like to fight inside of the trenches. He wants to make sure that people know it is not a pretty job. His uses of figurative language help portray his experiences clearly. He wants to make sure those people wanting or trying to get into the war it will not be pretty. Also, both of the quotes are showing the soldiers at their signs of weakness.  Through figurative language, Owen is still getting his main emotions across. On the other side, Bush uses devices such as metaphors and personification through his speech in order to show American pride and hopefulness for the future. Bush says, “Our country is strong” (Bush 533), an example of personification. The country itself cannot be physically strong, but if all of the people within the country unite then the country becomes strong as a nation with pride for their country. Bush could have said that our country is weaker now more than ever, but he did not because he was trying to make American’s feel better. Bush uses a lot of metaphors throughout his speech, but there was one that really stood out about having pride in America. He says, “America was targeted for attack because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world” (Bush 533). He is comparing America to a beacon saying that America is the brightest light of optimism in the world. People around the world come to America for a better life and Bush believes that is why our country was attacked. He takes pride in knowing that America is a great country. Owen and Bush both used figurative language, but they were used to show different emotions in their respective works.

Pride, death, and war go together while fighting for one’s country. Whether that pride is looked at as desperate in Owen’s poem or motivating in Bush’s speech, both authors included it. Death was not necessarily focused on in Bush’s speech, however he speaks of it briefly in the beginning. Owen’s poem is all about death and how gruesome it is to die during battle. War is something brought out in both poems. Bush had troops invade two countries after the attacks (Salem Press 2063). Owen’s setting for his poem is during a war. Bush and Owen are two totally different authors with different ideas about the same subjects. 
