Alliteration In Dulce Et Decorum Est By Wilfred Owen

In the first stanza of ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’, the reader is instantly drawn in with “Bent double”. This gives the poem a feeling of immediacy which is then followed up by a detailed description of what is to come. “Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs/ Men marched asleep/ Many had lost their boots but limped on.” The reader is yet again, drawn into the graphic scene of war. The alliteration “Knock-kneed” emphasises the battle weariness of the soldiers and intensifies the way they depicted war. Owen creates rhythm throughout the stanza by littering the poem with pauses. He uses this technique in the line “All went blind; Drunk with fatigue; death even to the hoots Of tired”. Owen makes the scene more vivid by bringing in his own involvement to war with “we cursed through the sludge”, he uses the term “sludge” to help capture the agony which was being experienced by the soldiers.

Wilfred Owen uses language and poetic devices to evoke sympathy for the soldier in the poem by using in-depth descriptions. An example of this is in the first stanza where the soldier in the poem ‘shivered in his ghastly suit of grey’. The ‘g’ sound in the words ‘ghastly’ and ‘grey’ emphasises the horror of ‘ghastly’ combined with the dreariness of ‘grey’, which are now the two main features of his life. The word ‘ghastly’ shows something that is strange and unnatural. The adjective ‘grey’, which has connotations of bleakness, portrays an image of darkness and monotony. Furthermore, the verb ‘shivered’ shows that he is vulnerable and exposed. In the phrase, ‘Legless, sewn short at elbow’, the sibilance at the end of ‘Legless’, and in ‘sewn short’ tell us that the short-syllable words are ruthlessly to the point, so it emphasises the fact that the soldier has no arms and legs because of his wounds.

Owen’s poem: “Dulce Et Decorum Est” describes what horrible fates soldiers could meet when they least expect it. This poem takes place in the trenches of the warfront with Owen describing his first hand experiences. He and some other soldiers are marching through the trenches, wet, dirty and fatigued all while the sounds of gunfire and artillery are constant. Suddenly, from the silence and the slow pace of the soldiers, a gas attack begins and Owen describes the scene as being “an ecstasy of fumbling” as they put on their gas masks just in time, however, not everyone was fast enough and Owen says “someone still was yelling out and stumbling, and floundering like a man on fire or lime… Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, as under a green sea, I saw him drowning”. The aim of this poem Is to juxtapose the idea that it is sweet and honorable to die for one’s country when in reality, at least for this soldier, it was not, he dies in agony, with no hope of being saved, as he takes more and more breaths he comes closer to death. This juxtaposition is continued as Owen describes how the body of the man is treated, “If In smothering dreams you too could pace behind the wagon we

Throughout the ages, poetry has played--and continues to play--a significant part in the shaping of a generation. It ranges from passionate sonnets of love to the gruesome realities of life. One such example of harsh realism is Wilfred Owen 's "Dulce et Decorum Est." Owen 's piece breaks the conventions of early 20th Century modernism and idealistic war poetry, vividly depicts the traumatizing experiences of World War I, and employs various poetic devices to further his haunted tone and overall message of war 's cruel truths.

This technique serves to emphasize the solemn and serious content. In stanza one, Owen describes the soldiers as they set off towards the army base from the front line. The simile "Bent double, like old beggars"(1) not only says that they are tired, but that they are so tired they have been brought down to the level of beggars who have not slept in a bed for weeks on end. Also, the simile "coughing like hags"(2) helps to depict the soldiers? poor health and depressed state of mind. Owen makes us picture the soldiers as ill, disturbed and utterly exhausted. He shows that this is not the government-projected stereotype of a soldier, in gleaming boots and crisp new uniform, but is the true illustration of the poor mental and physical state of the soldiers. By telling us that many of the platoon are barefoot, Owen gives us an idea of how awful the soldiers? journey already is; it then gets even worse. Owen tells us that the soldiers, although they must have been trained, still do not notice the deadly mustard gas shells being fired at them from behind; such is the extent of their exhaustion.

In the first stanza, Owen describes a regiment marching through sludge, something not unusual for soldiers at the time. In the second stanza, however, he introduces a new threat, mustard gas. The speaker exclaims: “Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!” (Owen L9). As most of the soldiers are putting on their gas masks, one fails to do so. The speaker is left watching the man struggle: “flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…guttering, choking, drowning.” (Owen L12-16). After watching his fellow soldier succumb to the hellish effects of the gas, the speaker could not erase the images from his memory. In the last stanza, he chastised the people at home who romanticize war and challenged them to think about how admirable it is to watch a man die: “the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin” (Owen L19-20).

This image is definitely not the glamorous picture of glory that, say army recruitment presents; worse, the soldiers are doing worse than civilians. As soon as the next stanza “[m]en marched asleep. Many had lost their boots” (5). They have lost their usual awareness and move mechanically; that doesn’t sound appealing! It gets worse: “[b]ut limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind” (6). So now they’re limping, apparently wounded, covered in blood, and can’t even see? It worsens further, “[d]runk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots/ Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind” (7-8). The soldiers are so exhausted it incapacitates them, and they can no longer hear the bullets being fired. This poem sounds like a distorted nightmare, except the speaker is living it, and even reliving the torment of the soldier’s death while he is unconscious. Owen’s wording expresses that the soldiers are merely men, deteriorating and inconceivably overwhelmed the opposite of positive war poetry containing glory and honor.

William Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” is a poem of inconsistent threads of an iambic pentameter theme. The poet seems to follow the iambic pentameter theme barely, but the further into the poem he gets, the less like an iambic pentameter the poem becomes. The first stanza/paragraph is eight lines of a consistent ABABCDCD rhyme scheme. After the first stanza/paragraph, the poem begins to fall apart and unravel as the poet becomes more infatuated with the terrors and the revulsions of the war. The second stanza/paragraph contains an ABABCDCD rhyme scheme, but the rhyming becomes more vague and forced as the intensity of the war nightmare increases. The last stanza/paragraph continues the same rhyme scheme, but contains twelve lines of rhymes instead of the typical eight line. The inconsistency of the line count through stanzas in this poem portrays a sense of the overwhelming mindset the poet is experiencing while seeing all of his fellow soldiers and friends gruesomely dying as he fights for his country and his life. The barbarity this man is encountering on the battlefield is messing with his head and is affecting his perception of keeping the poem within the form of a typical iambic pentameter theme.

Another tool in developing the effectiveness of the poem is the use of compelling figurative language in the poem helps to reveal the reality of war. In the first line, the metaphor, ?Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,?(1) shows us that the troops are so tired that they can be compared to old beggars. Also, the simile "coughing like hags"(2) helps to depict the soldiers? poor health and depressed state of mind. Owen makes us picture the soldiers as ill, disturbed and utterly exhausted Another great use of simile, ?His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,?(20) suggests that his face is probably covered with blood which is the color symbolizing the devil. A very powerful metaphor is the comparison of painful experiences of the troops to ??vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues.?(24) This metaphor emphasizes that the troops will never forget these horrific experiences. As you can see, Owen has used figurative language so effectively that the reader gets drawn into the poem.

DPs • I found this poem quite shocking, as it expresses the horrors of war in such a brutal and grotesque manner. As a result, it was an eye-opening to hear and visualize how savagely violent being on the battlefield truly is. • One critical aspect of the text is the author’s inclusion of similes in order to capture the essence of how heart wrenching it is to be a soldier. An example of this occurs in the beginning of the poem when the narrator is describes the other soldiers as, “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,” (1). In this example, the author shines light on how pitiful and hopeless they look from the effects of war.

The world is a changing place with many different countries and people in those countries who try to change the world from our past, future and present. When looking at poems from the past we are able to see the world through the author’s eyes of the time and possible a view into the future. History tells us to learn from the past to improve the future of our world. A way to learn about the past is by reading poems from a time most of us have no understanding or the imagination to know what it was actually like to survive during time of war. The world is not the same and the fights and battles are not the same as they were in the past. However, we all have the privilege

In Dulce et Decorum Est… Wilfred Owen informs the reader of the physical and emotional torment soldiers go through during and after war. In the opening verse Owen describes the soldiers physical health as they sluggishly make their way through the muddy terrain. Owen makes effective use of similes in lines 1 and 2.

From the first line of his poem, Owen sets the mood, Tyrus miller points out, “Owen begins his poem in confusion and apparent violence, strongly implying that the reader has entered in the middle of some action already well underway. With the first two words, "Bent double," the reader gets the impression of a blow that has been struck or a dangerous near-miss that has compelled a tense, rapid, violent contraction of a body” (Miller). Owen wastes no time in getting to the action and conflict of the war, as Miller points out, he confuses the reader to make them start the poem overwhelmed. The author wants to set the reader up in a confused mindset, and he does that by jumping wight into the battlefield with his writing and getting directly to the action and also pointing out some of the primary feelings of soldiers. With the poem taking place before or in between battles Owen uses symbolism when describing the soldiers point out their fatigue. “we cursed through sludge, / Till on the haunting flares,” (Owen 2-3) the soldiers were pissed off and still marching towards the “flares” which symbolizes another battle ahead on their journey. Owen continues to describe how tired the soldiers have become, highlighted by Miller, “The next four lines draw a veil of extreme weariness over the scene. The men are marching in a half-sleep.

This simile is an example of the imagery that is used very effectively throughout the poem. It helps the reader to imagine and hear troops coughing and swearing as they trudged through the mud. We can imagine the soldiers stumbling along, like ‘knock-kneed’ men - that I think would be like old men without canes; and coughing like hags - with their croaky voices and rattly breaths. This quote also helps me understand how hard it must be for the soldiers to keep on going - because they must be injured and tired, and physically weak like old men would

In both poems Owen shows us the physical effect of war, Wilfred starts the poems showcasing unendurable stress the men were going through. Appalling pictures are created and expressed through similes and metaphors. Owen’s lexical choices link to the semantic field of the archaic which conveys the atavistic effects of war. The men are compared to old beggars, hags, the once young men have been deprived of their youth and turned into old women, the loss of masculinity express the how exhausting and ruthless war was. The men were barely awake from lack of sleep, they “marched in sleep” their once smart uniforms resembling “sacks”. He also expresses how