The Face of Death: Explication of a Passage in “Dulce Et Decorum Est”

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest / To children ardent for some desperate glory, / The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est / Pro patria mori (Owen, lines 25-28).

This segment of Owen’s poem depicts one of his comrades being poisoned by tear gas; this is clearly not a pleasant sight and is not wished upon anyone. This is of particular interest to me because it depicts the morbid horror of war. I believe the poem does a fine job of communicating the horrors of war much better than other modes of literature may be able to. It also challenges a lot of the idealistic feelings people have towards those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

The stanza comes at the end of the poem after the men labored hard and rucked through difficult terrain. The men were tired and exhausted and being shelled by 5.9 caliber shells. Owen then shifts the scene when someone warns of gas in the air and the chaos that ensues as people try to put on their gas masks. The conflict in the situation is that someone is without a gas mask and left out and the speaker of the poem describes the man choking towards him. In the final stanza, the graphic death of the unfortunate soul is described, and Owen ties it up with how it is a lie that people believe that “it is a sweet and fitting thing to die for your country.” I will explicate the last few lines of the poem by analyzing the point of view, Owen’s utilization of Latin, and the tone.

The first device that stands out about this poem is the point of view. It would be easy for Owen to write this in second person where the reader would feel more drawn into the story and see the horrors of war first hand. However, Owen used third person and slightly detached the reader from the story. The reasons for t...

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... is a voice that will support or oppose a cause. While I understand that there are wars that are worth fighting, it is just as important to know which wars are not worth fighting. I see this poem as Owen opposing the war not because he is afraid of fighting evil, but because he sees World War One as a war that is not necessary and is doing more harm than the end result of good. War is supposed to be evil and awful. It is that way so people do not enjoy it. Owen employs point of view, Latin, and tone to challenge the view that dying for one’s country is a noble cause.

Works Cited

Owen, Wilfred. “Dulce Et Decorum Est.” World War One British Poets: Brooke, Owen, Sassoon, Rosenberg and Others. Ed. Candace Ward. Mineola, NY:Dover, 1997. 21-22.

Documentation

Janelle Vannice, my girlfriend, proofread my paper for grammar and coherence.