The poem "Dulce et Decorum est" was written by Wilfred Owen during World War One, and is probably the most popular war-poem ever written.The title is part of the Latin phrase 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori' which means 'It is sweet and right to die for your country'. Wilfred Owen saw the war first-hand and this poem is about a gas attack that he witnessed. Throughout this poem Owen gives the sense of anger and injustice through the use of many different poetic techniques.
Wilfred Owen emphasises the condition of the men in order to show the reader the effect that the war had on the soldiers. He often compares the young soldiers to elderly people:
"Bent double, like old beggars under sacks"
In this simile the soldiers are being compared to old beggars because of their physical condition. They are 'bent double' as the weight of the sacks mean they can't walk properly despite being young, healthy soldiers. As well as this, this war aged them permanently. Wilfred Owen continues to describe the condition of the soldiers and again he compares them to old people with the use a simile:
"Knock-kneed, coughing like hags"
Knock-kneed is a figure of speech but the author could also mean the soldiers' knees were literally knocking together due to their injuries and the weight of the sacks. This line also describes the cough of the soldiers as being like an old persons cough - deep and hoarse. Owen also wants to tell us that the soldiers were overworked and extremely tired:
"Drunk with fatigue"
Word choice in this metaphor is interesting. You wouldn't normally associate 'drunk' with an on-duty soldier and this shows us how they are walking - basically staggering around. 'Fatigue' means that they are more than just tired, th...
... middle of paper ...
...ways. It can be literal and mean that what has happened can't be fixed - soldiers are dead or the injuries will stay with the wounded forever. It can also mean that the survivors will never forget what they saw. Owen then reminds us that these soldiers are innocent and this war is corrupting them when it shouldn't be and this creates the feeling of injustice.
In conclusion, I think that throughout this poem Wilfred Owen has created a mood of anger and injustice. He has done this effectively by using poetic techniques such a imagery, metaphors, similes, alliterations and rhyme. To make the reader feel the same he shocks them with the true horror of the war and involves them in the poem by using words such as 'you'. Owen's true anger and bitterness comes clear at the end with the ironic statement at the end:
"The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori."
Just as the poem is written in a rhyme and rhythm that makes poetry easy to follow, the vivid imagery helps one to picture more easily what is going on in the poem. Owen brilliantly chooses words and phrases that illuminate the scene, making the reader feel as if he is physically in the scene along with the characters. For example, Owen describes that the Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots/ But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;/ Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots/ Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind (Gioia 782). A feeling of sadness and pity is felt as one hears the previous words. It is almost as if the scene of the soldiers trudging through the battlefield is being painted for the reader to actually visually ...
... before the war. Wilfred, noticing the luminous effect of buttercup petals on brother Harold's boots, announced piously, "Harold's boots are blessed with gold." Wilfred Owen is trying to tell the reader that the soldiers have to go through the horrific battle of war again and again, hour after hour. The soldiers have no time to relax which means nature has left the soldiers and they can’t have any freedom like before. Wilfred Owen has been through this himself and he has been in great danger if dieing and he did just after war ended. Owen tells the reader that once you join the army/war you can’t go back you have to fight day and night for you country there is no sleep and only time you will feel relaxed or free from war is when you die. He is telling us all wars are the same. They are endless.
To draw into the poet’s world, the poet must draw relations between them, including the reader, making them feel what the poet feels, thinking what the poet thinks. Wilfred Owen does this very creatively and very effectively, in both of his poems, Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori and Anthem of Doomed Youth, who is seen as an idol to many people today, as a great war poet, who expresses his ideas that makes the reader feel involved in the moment, feeling everything that he does. His poems describe the horror of war, and the consequences of it, which is not beneficial for either side. He feels sorrow and anger towards the war and its victims, making the reader also feel the same.
Images such as “limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind/Drunk with fatigue”, portray how soldiers lost their boots but nevertheless had to continue walking although their feet were bleeding. Besides this the quote suggests that due to their severe conditions several soldiers were barely able to flee the continuous gas or bombs attacks from the enemies. Finally, in order to describe the unawareness of the soldiers as well as their terrible conditions and mental state descriptive language such as „asleep, drunk and deaf” have been intensively used throughout Owens
Owen opens his poem with a strong simile that compares the soldiers to old people that may be hunch-backed. ‘Bent double, like old beggars like sacks.’ ‘like sacks’ suggests the image that the soldiers are like homeless people at the side of a street that is all dirty. This highlights that the clothes they were wearing were al...
portrays them to be. The speaker chooses words such as “bent double, like old baggers” and “knock-kneed” (Owens 1-2) to expose the discomfort and effects that war has on young soldiers. The soldiers are discreetly compared to crippled old men which emphasizes just how badly war has affected their bodies, stripping them of their health, making them weak and helpless like “old beggars” (Owen 1). Furthermore, the speaker expresses his experience as a sold...
Owen then moves on to tell us how even in their weak human state, the soldiers march on, until the enemy fires gas shells at them. This sudden situation causes the soldiers to hurriedly put their gas masks on, but one soldier did not put it on in time. Owen tells us the condition the soldier is in, and how, even in the time to come, he could not forget the images that it left him with. In the last stanza he tells the readers that if we had seen what he had seen then we would never encourage the next generation to fight in a war. Owen uses imagery constantly to convey the conditions and feelings experienced during this war.
In ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’, Owen compares the solders who are men to ugly, old, sick women through the simile “coughing like hags”, highlighting that the men no longer possess strength, masculinity, exceptional physical skills and potency. As a result, the soldiers’ eradicated youth and innocence portrays the dehumanising effect that the soldier’s have faced through their experiences of the war. Additionally, Owen further explores this dehumanising effect through the exaggerated movement of the soldiers in the hyperbolic metaphor “We cursed through sludge”, illustrating the ghastly and gruesome environment made up of a mix of materials such as body parts of other fellow soldiers, blood and mud. The horrendous conditions the soldiers faced for a long period of time had a drastic impact on the soldier’s mental health which in turn lead to post-traumatic stress disorder or shell-shock disorder and lost of potency. Owen also portrays that not only did the war affect a few soldiers, but all the soldiers through the repetition of “all”. Ultimately, it is conveyed that the soldiers had to unwillingly sacrifice their human attributes and was dehumanised as a result of human conflict. Similarly, in ‘The Next War’, Owen
In ‘Anthem of Doomed Youth’ Owen shows another version of the suffering- the mourning of the dead soldiers. When Owen asks “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?”, his rhetorical question compares the soldiers to cattle as they die and suffer undignified. Owen uses this extended metaphor to confront us with the truth, that there are too many fatalities in war. As such, the soldier’s deaths are compared to livestock, to emphasise their poor treatment and question our perspective about soldiers dying with honour. With an overwhelming death toll of over 9 million during WWI, Owen depicts how the soldier’s die with the repetition of “Only the...” to emphasise the sounds of war that kills soldiers in the alliteration ‘rifles’ rapid rattle.’ Owen also illustrates the conditions that the soldiers died in and how they were not given a proper funeral in the cumulation ‘no prayers nor bells,/ nor any voice of mourning.’ Owen painfully reminds us that we have become complacent with the deaths of soldiers, seeing them as a necessary sacrifice during human conflict. Thus, Owen shows us what we have overlooked about war, that is, that it brings endless death and long-lasting grief to the surviving soldiers and the people around
The words Owen chooses to use in the poem describing the soldiers are peculiar choices. The speaker refers to them as “[b]ent double, like beggars in sacks” (line 1), very different from a typical idea of a soldier. From the beginni...
The poem is divided into three sections with each part dealing with a different stage of the experience. In the first stanza, Owen describes the state the soldiers are in. The first line states that the platoon is “Bent double, like old beggars” (1). This gives the reader a vision that they are exhausted and compares them to the look of beggars on the street, who often times, look very ragged and shabby. The line “coughing like o...
Owen emphasises that the massacres caused by war do lead to crippling physical damage. In ‘DEDE’, he conveys this by the use of simile paired with alliteration “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags”. These two lines, to begin ‘DEDE’ sets the mood of the poem, giving the audience a bitter greeting and asserts their fatigue. The comparison the men to beggars emphasises their ageing prematurely and that they have a lack of control over their life. Owen forcefully highlights how these men are going to war young but dying old due to the ageing of this war
The similes and metaphors used by Owen illustrate very negative war scenes throughout the poem, depicting extreme suffering of young men fighting during World War I. The first simile used by Owen describes the soldiers as “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks”, giving them sickly, wounded, and exhausted attributes from battle and lack of rest (1). Next, the soldiers are described as “Knock-kneed, coughing like hags”, which once again portrays these young men as sick...
...e see a young boy being taught how to use weapons. In “Exposure”, Owen depicts a group of soldiers freezing to death at war, even though they aren’t in the midst of fighting. Lastly, in “Dulce Et Decorum Est” we read about a soldiers who struggles to get his mask on during a gas attack (when the enemy releases a gas deadly upon inhale). Owen describes the soldiers slow death in detail. Not only do these images provide the reader with first hand accounts of war, but they also show Owen’s feelings towards the war. All of these images that are glued into his head will be there forever, which is why he incorporates these realities in his poems, so that everyone can realize that war is nothing more than a inhumane act of terror.
How Wilfred Owen Uses Language and Imagery in His Poetry to Communicate his Attitudes of War