Relating Two Texts

In class last we one of our assignments was to find a poem about war. After we had done that we were to get in a group of two or three and share them. One of the people in my group had a great poem that we could easily connect to one of the poems in the packet.

This poem is "In Flanders Field" by Dr. John McCrae.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

I connected this poem to "The Man He Killed," one of the poems in the packet that Mr. Kunkle gave us. Other than them both being related because they are about war, they are related in a couple of other ways also. The one that popped out at me the most was the concept of that they all are normal people and if they weren't fighting each other they wouldn't be enemies and they probably would have gotten along just dandy.

So, in the poem written by McCrae it talks about how "We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow." In those two lines it is explaining how they are dead, but it doesn't matter who is dead, just that people from both sides are dead. And the day before they were alive, and both sides felt dawn and saw sunset glow.

In the "The Man He Killed," it explains how if it were under different conditions the man that he met he probably would have sat down and had a beer with him but because he as an "enemy" he shot him instead.

Another relation that just occurred to me that I wanted to mention real quick was that I found it interesting that instead of using the word enemy they both used the term "foe." And I was kind of curious as to why that would be.