El Duche De Corum Est

El Duche De Corum Est

The poem Dulche et Decorum Est is about Wilfred Owen (a war poet) who

describes in his own experiences, what the war was like.

Verse one describes how the soldiers are returning to base camp. Owen

uses a slow halting rhythm to suggest how much pain and misery the

soldiers are encountering and to imitate how slow are walking. He does

this by using punctuation. Verse one tells us a lot about the

condition, both physically and mentally, of the men and it gives us an

idea of the appalling conditions!. He uses similes such as, "Bent

double, like hags"; this illustrates how many of the men fall ill. The

poet's choice of vocabulary in verse one is very effective in

portraying the state of the soldiers. He uses words such as sludge,

trudge, and haunting to describe the harsh conditions of the

battlefield.

The rhythm in verse two suddenly increases, this displays the soldiers

panic during the gas attack! Punctuation is used to create this faster

rhythm, exclamation marks and short sentences suddenly speed up the

pace. This gives the reader an image of the weary soldiers suddenly

changing into panic-stricken men. It means that the reader feels that

they are involved in what is happening! "Gas! Gas! Quick boys!" direct

speech is used to create panic. Owen also uses words such as

stumbling, floundering, and fumbling to describe the desperate actions

of the dying man. The verbs such as yelling and drowning give the

reader a feeling of chaos. "As under a green sea, I saw him drowning",

this describes how the gas causes a thick green misty haze around the

men. This is a useful phrase as it enables us to imagine what is

happening and use our imagination. It also gives us a sense of how

real it all is in his vivid descriptions. Owens guilt is suggested in

the line, "In all my dreams before my helpless sight, He plunges at

me, guttering, choking, drowning". The fact that he dreams about this