Analysing Willfred Owen's Dulce Et Decorum Est.

    Through vivid imagery and compelling metaphors "Dulce et Decorum Est" gives the reader the exact feeling the author wanted. The poem is an anti-war poem by Wilfred Owen and makes great use of these devices. This poem is very effective because of its excellent manipulation of the mechanical and emotional parts of poetry. Owen's use of exact diction and vivid figurative language emphasizes his point, showing that war is terrible and devastating. Furthermore, the utilization of extremely graphic imagery adds even more to his argument. Through the effective use of all three of these tools, this poem conveys a strong meaning and persuasive argument.

“Dulce et Decorum Est” is a poem written by English soldier and a poet, Wilfred Owen. He has not only written this poem, but many more. Such as “Insensibility”, “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, “Futility”, “Exposure”, and “Strange Meeting” are all his war poems. (Poets.org) His poetry shows the horror of the war and uncovers the hidden truths of the past century. Among with his other poems “Dulce et Decorum Est” is one of the best known and popular WWI poem. This poem is very shocking as well as thought provoking showing the true experience of a soldiers in trenches during war. He proves the theme suffering by sharing soldiers’ physical pain and psychological trauma in the battlefield. To him that was more than just fighting for owns country. In this poem, Owen uses logos, ethos, and pathos to proves that war was nothing more than hell.

Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est also created a specific tone in his poem as well. His poem takes on a completely different tone though. In his version of a war piece, Owen is showing us how war is bad and how much he feels that it is wrong, and how we won’t like the conclusion that results from them. This war poem, about the First World War, has a more negative look on the actions of war. An example of this tone can be seen in the first stanza. According to the Bloom’s Literary Reference Online, “The first stanza presents a scene saturated with misery.” (Dulce et Decorum Est) Throughout the entire piece Owen gives us the tone of misery, awful challenges, and death – all negative feelings. We can see in the last couple of lines of the poem how Owen really felt about war, “The old Lie, Dulce et Decorum est / Pro patria mori.” (27-28) This roughly translates to ‘it is sweet and right to die for your country.’ It is a wonderful thing that one could die for their country, the soldiers should be filled with honor to do so. But Wilfred Owen tells us

Wilfred Owen's poem ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ shows how harsh and terrible war really was. Owen uses language features such as similes, personification and strong adjectives to make the readers feel pity, disbelief and disgust at the struggles these men went through during the war. Throughout the poem the poet makes the reader feel disgust using violent imagery to show the harsh conditions that the soldiers experienced, and how the war affected them. This is shown when an unlucky soldier is described dying in a gas attack.

“Dulce Et Decorum Est” is an anti-war poem, written by a soldier in the british army during World War 1, who ended up being one of the leading poets of the first world war. In his poem, “Dulce Et Decorum Est”, Wilfred Owen uses diction to evoke grotesque imagery that portrays the true horrors of the WWI battlefield in contrast to the blind patriotism promoted by propaganda.

Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfird Owen is written about the First World War. The title means its sweet and right, but the story behind it is totally different to the title, which is ironic. The poet clearly mentions the horrible and appalling conditions that happened to soldiers in the First World War. The techniques that have been mentioned in the poem are imagery, language, and tone. The poet changes his tone of voice to angry and bitter, as he explains and describes the horrifying image that happened around him in the war.

In addition, the use of metaphors throughout the poem is used to evoke feelings within the reader to sympathize with the soldiers. “Drunk with fatigue, deaf even to the hoots of gas shells dropping softly behind” explains how fatigued and exhausted the men were that they disregarded the dangers of the shelling. The soldiers were unable to march properly, just as a drunken man stumbles and like a deaf person they were unable hear the shells. Through the use of language, similes and metaphors Owen lures the reader into the poem and evokes an awareness of the shocking occurrences of

The poet tells us, the glory of war is just an “old lie”. Owen shows the indignity of death in war as the dying man was “flung” in a wagon instead of being honored for his bravery and duty as the way they were told. The last stanza goes into sickening detail of the dying man, “at every jolt the blood – come gargling from his froth-corrupted lungs”, the “white eyes writhing” in his face. The use of alliteration and assonance emphasizes how the memory has a powerful impact on those who witnessed the scene. Owen’s vivid imagery consumes the reader in horror, pity, shock, even disgust and is enough to sear the heart and mind. The cruel reality of war can be clearly seen as men lose their lives in the most pointless futile manner as they are just “flung” aside during death. Just by reading, the readers can perceive Owen’s bitter and disparaging tone towards war, the propaganda and sectors of society who glorified it.

The poem “Dulce et Decorum est” by Wilfred Owen is an appalling and thought provoking poem that depicts the horrors of the First World War, focusing on a horrific gas attack. The latin words “Dulce et Decorum est” translate to “It is sweet and proper”, the first words of the phrase “It is sweet and proper to die for the fatherland”. Owen effectively uses the poetic technique of irony to disprove this statement, by graphically describing atrocious scenes of war. Through these descriptions, the poet creates vivid , effective imagery for the reader and conveys a powerful message – that there is nothing glorious or honorable about fighting and dying for your country.

Owen uses language, structure and imagery to present the realities of war in ‘Dulce et Decorum est’. Owen himself was an officer in the First World War and therefore speaks from experience. Owen airs his views through multiple poems he wrote throughout his time in war, all of his poems echo the same negative outlook on war which at the time was very unusual due to people like Jessie Pope supporting and encouraging war through poetry. Owen reveals the physical damage to the men in the war using spondees such as ‘blood-shod’, which give the impression of the men being dirty and un-clean due to the awful conditions of war.

The poem corresponds to a French ballad structure. The way the poem is structure it seems to give the poem more of a unworldly presence, as if it was unreal that any of this happened in real life. The meaning of ‘Dulce et decorum est’ is “it is sweet and honourable”. This makes you think that it will be a poem encouraging war, but as soon as you start to read the poem you realize that it is the complete opposite. The simile’s that are used in the first verse give strong images such as: “like old beggars under sacks” and “coughing like hags”. These are used to describe the way in which the soldiers were walking. They show that they were extremely tired and ill. Wilfred Owen has put across to the reader the emotions of loss and deep sadness in very effective ways using figures of speech combined with strong imagery to describe the horrific reality of war. The change of rhythm is also very effective as it conveys different emotions in different situations as they change. To show more emphasizes on the emotions of the reader. This poem deals with very strong emotions and for Wilfred Owen to write such powerful poems his emotions must have been even

When World War 1 began, many thought it was gonna be a short, silly war and the soldiers really did not take it seriously. This quickly changed and became one of the deadliest wars in human history. This war also brought a whole new selection of deadly weapons that countries could use on each other. These weapons included machine guns, flamethrowers, tanks, and toxic gas; the latter being what is used on the soldiers in the poem. The soldiers were very fatigued and did not hear the gas shell drop, but one exclaimed that there was gas and all but one of the soldiers were able to get their masks on. Owen illustrates the death of his comrade by saying “As under a green sea, I saw him drowning”(Owen 14). The green gas suffocated and choked their victims, which led to the appearance of the person drowning. As a result of these tragedies of war, many of the soldiers began to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Owen is shown to have PTSD as he states later “In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning”(Owen 15-16). Owen sees his fallen comrade’s suffering every night in his dreams. The peril that many of the soldiers faced and the effect it had on them after is another way that this war was so

Wilfred Owen, a British war poet, used multiple poetic devices to enhance and explore the futility of war within ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’. ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ the first segment of a Latin saying ‘Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori’, translates to ‘It is sweet and right’ collectively translating to ‘It is sweet and right to die for your country’. The theme within Owen’s poem contests this saying, through the implementation of irony. The utilisation of imagery effectively contradicts the heroic perception of war, subsequently contradicting the title’s translation. Owen’s implementation of similes enables relatability for the audience, ultimately generating a similar vivid image for every audience. The use of metaphors allows a greater understanding

The title of this poem, Dulce et Decorum Est, is symbolical. The author used this title to contrast the reality of war, and how opposed the actual idea of the war is, compared to this phrase, used in Dulce et Decorum Est pro patria mori, from the Latin Odes of Roman by the poet Horace, who wrote that is sweet and proper to die for one’s country. In my words, when I read the poem, the title means that what the poem is describing that the war and what happens in it is anything but sweet and proper to die for a country, no matter how much you love it.

‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ is a poem which explores the horrors which soldiers faced whilst fighting in The First World War, written from the first-hand experience of Wilfred Owen, who demolishes a popular façade that war was a glorious and noble thing to be part of. To present the realities of war in ‘Dulce…’, firstly there is an ironic use of religious language with words such as “desperate glory” and “ardent”; religion teaches peace and love, and war is a direct contrast to that. Owen also uses words such as “old beggars” and “hags”, emphasising how the young soldiers have seemingly aged prematurely and war has destroyed their health: these soldiers should be young and strong but instead they are described as old women, again implying the emasculation of the men by war. The word “hag” is also significant in being associated with the supernatural, a theme Owen explores within the poem.