Dulce Et Decorum Est Suffering

Is war grand? Is the belief that we should love and die for our country true? Many soldiers believe sacrificing their lives for the sake of others’ freedom is the ultimate way to go. Should we believe this? Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce Et Decorum Est” subverts the common, public vocabulary that war is grand by expressing the suffering, the hardships, and the anger troops felt in a quick ambush.
The author explicitly states that soldiers suffer in war. He states, “…coughing like hags…many had lost their boots but limped on, blood-shod” (Owen). He continues to explain the journey by the soldiers, “…drunk with fatigue” (Owen). The suffering the soldiers went through is so intense that the poet describes them using words such as blind, lame, deaf and “marching asleep." The poet paints a picture of a grim suffering. At one instance he states, “The blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs” (Owen). In yet another instance, he records of the wounded soldier. “He plunged at me guttering, choking, and drowning” (Owen). These instances show extreme suffering.

At some point, the poet records that the soldiers struggled to keep their helmets. The poet who writes as a soldier states how they faced hardships, “…men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots but limped on, blood-shod.” (Owen). He also notes that he watched a friend with “white eyes writhing in his face” (Owen). This statement and many others throughout the poem are an expression of the difficulty and hardship that the soldiers faced. The poet seeks to discredit the glamour or the grandness associated with war since the hardships supersede the honor and grace that eventually comes to war