Interpreting War: An Analysis of Dulce et Decorum Est

Dulce et DeCorma
In the poem Dulce et Decorum Est Wilfred Owen reflects on his experience serving on the frontlines of World War One. In the most basic sense, Owen acts as a reporter, as he accurately and informatively sums up the horrors and fears faced by millions of combatants around the world. Before I begin to analyze the poem it is important to recognize some background on the atrocities of World War One.

World War One was fought primarily through trench warfare. Trench warfare emerged due to the advancement of weaponry in which guns had the capacity to kill many people in a short amount of time. In order to combat this soldiers from both sides of the war would dig out trenches or long, ditches in which they could hide from this incredible powerful gunfire. The result of this is that both sides would dig in on opposite sides of a field and in between them would be what is known as no man’s land. This fundamentally changed the nature of military engagement as instead of tactics, and maneuverability, warfare now resorted to waves of people desperately charging across a wall of gunfire with the hopes of making it into the other sides trenches for direct engagement. As a byproduct of this standstill, there were massive causalities and suffering that are almost indescribable. In addition, many of the soldier’s saving grace, the ditches, were literally hell on earth as they were disease ridden, rat infested, and water logged. It is this subhuman condition that Owen attempts to describe his experience as well as to question the glory and

This sentiment expressed through poetry and other mediums can be thought of as very similar Uncle Sam in the United States. Owen’s poem serves the very opposite purpose, almost like an anti-recruitment poem in which he is questioning notions of