Dulce et Decorum Est

In several of his poems, Wilfred Owen tells of vicious memories returning to him in dreams, convicting and horrifying. Dulce et Decorum Est is certainly one of those, perhaps even the most powerful of all of them. His use of imagery paints an ugly picture of death, mutilation, and suffering in the service of country, conjuring feelings of revulsion and desolation. These feelings are further accentuated by use of poetic structure, bracing an already strong presence. But Dulce et Decorum Est isn’t simply a tale of horror. Owen is personally condemning the exaltation of the death suffered on the battlefield, even in service of one's homeland.

War is not a pretty sight. On the battle field, what is seen, felt and heard isn’t fully comprehensible unless one experienced it first hand. Owen’s writing, “Dulce Et Decorum Est”, vividly describes the horrid war that he was in. Owen begins his poem by placing the reader in the environment that he was in. Lines such as, “men marched asleep”, “coughing like hags”, “haunting flares” and “limped on, blood-shod” were effective at conveying an emotional appeal. The conditions that the soldiers were in w...

Owen who experienced the war himself writes the truth about war through his poems without dramatizing it. A powerful argument against the complacency of those who believe war to be a glorious patriotic duty is mounted by Owen. He is also succeeded in portraying the reality of the war—the boredom, the helplessness of the people in the war through his writings. Instead of direct description of the anger and frustration of the people due to the devastation of war, Owen euphemistically delivers his messages by painting vivid imaginaries through his tonal, point of view, sentence struct...

There are aspects of war that one cannot understand if they never witness it. The lack of connection with soldiers on the battlefield only fuel citizens who want to fight. Wilfred Owen’s poems paint a picture of being on the field to people who do not have this experience. He describes the emotions, thoughts, and struggles of living in the combat zone.

Wilfred Owen wrote about the distilled pity of war from his first-hand experience. Owen concisely features the carnage and destruction of war in both the poems, ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ and ‘Strange Meeting’ Owen uses these poems document the psychological and physical debilitation of war. In ‘Dulce et Decorum est’, Owen uses a various amount of literary techniques to visually depict the cruel and grotesque death from the mustard gas whereas ‘Strange Meeting’, portrays the speaker in conversation with a dead soldier that he is presumably responsible for killing, symbolically which emphasises the effect of the wartime trauma. Wilfred Owen’s poetry effectively highlights the carnage and destruction of war to educate the audience on the disillusionment of war.

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.

The Soldier by Rupert Brooke, and Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen are two poems which were written during the First World War, and both being written about this conflict, they share the same theme of war poetry. However, the two poems deal very differently with the subject of war, resulting in two very different pieces of writing.

All exceptional poetry displays a good use of figurative language, imagery, and diction. Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" is a powerful antiwar poem which takes place on a battlefield during World War I. Through dramatic use of imagery, metaphors, and diction, he clearly states his theme that war is terrible and horrific.

Consequently, Owen conveys so many deep emotions to the reader that it feels as if one is really in the battle. The reader would be overwhelmed with the detailed descriptions of the war and about its pain and destruction that it has caused. On the other hand, the reader would have felt that Brookes poem was shallow and bias.

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: