Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" and Okita's "In Response to Executive Order 9066" speak volumes about wars, their motives, and their consequences. Since my father seldom talks about his experiences in Vietnam, apparently patriotism is sustained by myths and misguided nationalism. Owen's poem uses the horrors of war to make the reader think twice about war and patriotism. Okita's poem uses friendship between a Japanese-American and an Anglo-American to display the damage that patriotism sometimes causes. These poems effectively denounce patriotism through imagery and irony.
First, Owen uses imagery to create fear in the reader's mind. Owen uses the reader's reaction to make an interesting point about patriotism. In his poem, Owen states, "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, / Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through / Sludge." This sentence creates an ugly picture of what war is. Owen chooses to put the word "Sludge" on a separate line to illustrate how dirty and messy the situation was. The whole sentence seems to contain a bit of cacophony. The cacophony adds to the poem's message by making the reader think even more about the words as they come out aloud. The speaker also states that "In all my Dreams, before my helpless sight, / He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning." In this instance, Owen uses wrenching verbs to create a vivid picture in the reader's mind. Because the reader is now infected with the horrors of war, Owen can easily denounce as a lie "It is sweet and proper to die for one's country."
Second, Okita uses subtle irony to question the importance of patriotism. Okita paints a picture of a beautiful friendship between two American girls, one Anglo and the other Japanese. To create this picture, Okita focuses on what the two friends do together. They look at boys together, usually sit together in class, and tease each other. The speaker also tells us that she is very "American" indeed: she has bad spelling, has a messy room, feels funny using chopsticks, and likes hot dogs. Then one day in geography class, the speaker's friend, Denise, tells her, "'You're trying to start a war,' she said, 'giving secrets away / to the Enemy, why can't you keep your big mouth shut?'" This statement shows how Americans can take patriotism overboard and use it to hurt others, not only physically, as in wars, but also emotionally, as in this case.
Owen's use of imagery and Okita's use of irony show the effects of patriotism. Owen and Okita seem to cry out in these poems that patriotism can tear down a country, especially a heterogeneous nation like the United States. Both poems project patriotism as ugly, shameful, and harmful.
One thing is for certain—this is no "average" paper. The reader should be impressed by the student's approach to the assignment. The student employs a deeper analysis of the poems by focusing on the workmanship of the authors, rather than discussing patriotism in vague generalities. The organization of topics as imagery and irony is outstanding. Notice how the topics agree nicely with the thesis.
The student's style is pleasing and lively, because present tense verbs are used, as they ought to be when discussing literature. On the other hand, the writer uses few, if any, transitional words and phrases between her sentences. For the most part, the writer uses sentences that are simple in structure, although she occasionally uses a complex sentence, such as the last sentence in the second paragraph. This is one of those papers where the reader's heart wishes to reward the student for uniqueness. However, to assign this paper a "B," and not an "A," can be justified as follows.
Introduction: The reader happily finds a concise and clear thesis as the last sentence in the introduction, and the student alerts the reader that she will have two points in her argument: imagery and irony. Also, the writer identifies the poems and authors in the first sentence. In addition to this, the writer should be commended for attempting to provide an "attention grabber" when she refers to her father. However, the reference is not especially vivid, nor does the reader see how the "anecdote" fits nicely into the introduction. To cure this flaw, the writer should have provided some transition from the first sentence that would have united the thought with the second. The writer hedges when she writes "apparently." Writers hedge, because they think they are being modest. The student should be bold with her statements. In addition to this, notice the lack of transitions between the sentences, which are all simple sentences. Also, the writer can be criticized for imprecision in the first sentence when she states "...about wars, their motives, and their consequences." One could argue that wars have no motives, but this is a minor point. Since this was a timed writing, it is understandable that the writer did not have time to polish her sentences.
First Topic Sentence: The writer does very well by pulling quotations from the text in order to strengthen her argument. The paragraph is well developed as she discusses the imagery of ugliness, harshness (cacophony), and horror, centered on the senses that affect sight and hearing. The writer hedges when she states "The whole sentence seems to contain a bit of cacophony." Either the sentence has cacophony or not. The harshness of the sounds and difficulty of pronunciation are cacophonous. So the writer is correct. Overall, this paragraph is well done.
Second Topic Sentence: Again, the writer provides a specific quotation from the text to support her argument. As for choice of quotation, the writer uses the most shocking lines in the poem. The irony is clear, because the narrator is willing to go to the relocation camp. Her president has asked her to go, and since she is a loyal American, she will do what her president asks. The writer also offers good evidence of the girl's "Americanness." However, the writer lapses into using the personal pronoun, "us." In addition to this, the writer becomes imprecise by confusing imagery with irony when she discusses "painting pictures." This paragraph would be stronger had the writer tailored her discussion to the ironic elements of the poem. Her discussion about "pictures" here is "verbal throat-clearing" until she finally refers to irony by comparing the similarities of the two girls.
Conclusion: The writer restates her thesis well. Notice also how the writer does offer the reader something interesting to think about when she states, "...especially a heterogeneous nation like the United States." However, this statement is not really a "clincher," nor is it especially vivid. Some quotation or anecdote would have been nice. The conclusion could have been better developed, but the paragraph is nevertheless effective as it is.
While the paper is clearly not a "C" paper, whether the paper is a "B" or an "A" becomes a judgment call of the reader. In my opinion, the weaknesses in this paper include some hedging, overuse of simple structure of sentences, even though the writer does show some sophistication, and a lack of transitions. It is these kinds of weaknesses that separate the B's from the A's.