War in Dulce Est Decorum Est Essay

Dulce Et Decorum Est Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owens poem, Dulce Et Decorum Est is a tendentious poem about the harsh realities of World War I; throughout his poems he shows his hatred for the Generals and commanding officers. In this poem he describes his memories of physical horror, and how many soldiers had been mislead about the glory of war. It should also be noted that this poem is in first person, and Owen is recalling the event, also the event in just one moment of time.

The poem is split into four different stanzas, in the first stanza he shows how weak the soldiers were due to the horrific effects of the war. In the first line he starts off by using a hyperbole to show how badly the soldiers were affected: like old beggars under sacks, this shows that even though these men were supposed to be the cream of the crop so to speak, they were being compared to beggars under sacks. Owen continues with this idea: Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, the alliterative Knock-kneed, slows down the tempo of the poem greatly, there is also a simile used here which compares them to witches. This creates an image of old women trudging through the thick mud it also connects with what shape the soldiers health was in, for example coughing like hags refers to how critically ill they were as well. He goes on to say: till on haunting flares we turned our backs, in this line Owen uses both personification and a sense of hopelessness to show their misery, firstly he personifies the flares making the statement more effective. Secondly, by saying we turned our backs, it shows that these soldiers who at the start of the war would have been full of enthusiasm and spunk, had it all drained from them by the war. In the following line, trudge is onomatopoeic which emphasises how slowly they were travelling and it should be noted that the speed of the poem is very slow; we can compare this to the everyday life of some soldiers.

He starts the next line by saying: Men marched asleep, this statement is equivocal, as it can be thought that Owen is saying that the men marched un-alert or it could mean that they were fully aware of their situation but they had not come to terms with it and they may have thought that it was unreal, either way these men had been mentally affected by war as well as physically. We also see another hyperbole; this accentuates the conditions they were in. We can see that there was also an eagerness in these soldiers which would be expected due the fact that they would want to go home: but limped on. He then writes: All went lame, all blind, by this he does not mean that they are physically blind, but more a mental state such as desensitisation indicating that these men had been on the front line for a protracted period of time, or the soldiers had not know what they were getting their selves into due the fact that there was so much propaganda. We then see the metaphor: drunk with fatigue, it elevates the idea further that these men were so worn down by war. Owen then writes: deaf even to the hoots, I believe this could be a reference to the desensitisation experienced by the men. He then uses personification once again to add effect to the shells and make them seem like living creatures that are sought after the mens blood.

For the second stanza Owen recalls the gas attack on the soldiers and we see a change of pace this puts emphasise on the attack and the urgency of the moment, we also see some direct speech in the first line which helps with the atmosphere at that moment, however, if it was used earlier in the poem it would not have had the same effect as it does now. In contrast with the first stanza, there is a lot more action in the second stanza we could relate this to sentry duty and going over the top or the calm before a storm. Owen also uses an unlikely oxymoron: ecstasy of fumbling, this shows the men were caught off guard but I believe it wasnt their fault due to fact that they were so exhausted because of the recent action they had been in. In the proceeding line we see the word but and we can instantly guess that something dreadful is about to occur, then we see that one man has not put his mask on and he is chocking on the gas. Towards the end of the stanza we can see that very powerful words are used such as thick green light and misty panes, these are most likely describing the gas and these phrases help illustrate the picture in our minds. As we mentioned before, the pace changes very quickly due to the attack, however, as it progresses the pace slows once again; this may coincide with fact the soldier is dying a horrendous death in front of Owen - we can relate the pace to the soldiers life is which is slowly ebbing away. As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. We once notice the green sea of gas (which is a simile), but more importantly this is the first time Owen uses a comma in this portion of the poem, this pause makes the reader digest what they had just read the death of soldier who eventually just become a statistic and it is shocking that this was the reality of war. Another interesting technique Owen uses to depict the war is the present continues verbs, for example; fumbling, stumbling, drowning, and floundring, these verbs add a dramatic feel to the event due to fact they are presented in alternate lines.

The third stanza consists of just two lines; however, they are equally emotive as the previous ones. He explains that he is still haunted and traumatised by the memory of the gas attack: In all my dreams, before my helpless sight. He goes on to use the words guttering, chocking, drowning these seem to be characteristics given to dying animals, and indeed these men were treat like cattle, we see another example of this in the following lines: Behind the wagon that we flung him in. This shows that individuals were not valued by their commanding officers.

In the final stanza we witness Owens anger towards the war and the death of an innocent soldier; he also uses the rhythmic beat of iambic pentameter. He starts off by saying: If in some smothering dreams you too could pace, this is used to make the reader think about what is would be like to actually be in war, which once again is aimed to shock the reader. He ends the poem with a deathly slow reciting of Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.

Finally, this is a great poem and the language used does show the horrors of war very effectively and Owen has shown us that the old Latin phrase is undeniably, a lie.