Dulce Et Decorum Est - Critical Response Essay

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.

Owen uses Imagery as another method to convey the brutality of war and also as a means of contrast to show his life before and after. In the third stanza he creates a picture of blood being poured away; “poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry” and he uses metaphorical language to emphasis the point that he nearly bled to death as you cannot literally pour the blood out of your veins.

‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ is another of Wilfred Owen’s poems that conveys inner human conflict, in terms of past doings in World War I. The poem was written in 1917 at Craiglockhart (Owen’s first battle after his rehabilitation due to ‘shellshock’). It portrays an inner change in his approach to war and it’s gruesome environment:

Wilfred Owen's poem, "Dulce et Decorum Est", uses striking and vivid imagery to convey the horror of gas warfare during World War I. Owen opens the poem with a description of soldiers retreating from battlefield. These men are exhausted as they "marched asleep." (line 6) The agonizing physical state soldiers lived through is grusesome and detailedly depicted by Owen. He explains how they "bent double like old beggars inder sacks/Knock-kneed, coughing like hags" (lines 1-2). Soon, "Gas! GAS!" (line 9) is shouted and the men go into an "ecstasy of fumbling" (line 9) to secure their masks against the green poison trying to invade their lungs. This new chemical warfare introduced in World War I was a deadly enemy that many were not prepared for.

Young lives are wasted in war which only increases the cruelty and meaningless of it. Wilfred Owen’s poem, “Dulce et Decorum est” follows the death of a young soldier. In the line “If you could hear at every jolt the blood froth from his corroded lungs. The strong use of visual and sensory imagery depicts what the soldier’s final moments of how his life ended, the soldier died a painful death from suffocation due to a fierce gas attack.

During his recount of a gas attack, Owen uses similes to help convey the desperation he and his comrades faced during World War I. In fact, in his

Owen also uses language of terror and powerlessness for the speaker as the poem progresses. Describing the soldier the speaker has seen fail to attach his gas mask, he says, “I saw him drowning” (14). He dreams of this encounter repeatedly, “[in] all my dreams, before my helpless sight/ He plunges at me” (15-16). In his dreams, he is not only powerless to aid this man, but

First, Owen uses logos to explain the horrible experience in WWI. The tile of this poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” means, it is honorable and sweet to die for own country, (Poetry Foundation), but the experience was too depressing. Owen uses the stanza like "But someone still was yelling…… man in fire or lime”, the ones who weren’t able to rich out their mask were choking and stumbling from toxic gas. Plus, a gas was all they needed to wipe out the field. (line 11,12) In line 5 and 6 he says, “Men marched asleep”, right before the gas blew off, some solders were men were sleep, as other limped their bloody feet as they lost their boots in battle

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.

Furthermore, Owen’s Dulce also communicates to reader about the futility of war by showing war is futile because it is simply massacre, it is pointless because soldiers are dying and suffering. Through the simile, “His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of

The poem vividly depicts a snapshot in time and the reader can see, hear and almost smell the environment leaving them in a state of sadness and shock. Through the use of similes, metaphors and oxymorons Owen is able to evoke a realistic experience immersing the reader into the soldier’s terrors and distress during warfare and gassing in the trenches. ‘Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge’. These similes clearly depict soldiers struggling in the atrocious conditions and likens them to beggars and hags. ‘His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin’ Expresses the idea that the dying soldier can take no more and has given up. Owens use of metaphors such as ‘Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots, of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind’ impress upon the reader the shell shocked state of the soldiers and struggle of survival. ‘As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plungers at me, guttering, choking, drowning.’ This soldier is helpless to save his mate and watches on as he dies. The use of oxymorons emphasise the soldiers plight- ‘Men marched asleep.’ Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!- An ecstasy of fumbling’ Dulce et Decorum Est is an emotionally wrenching tale confronting the reader. Through the use of expressive language, the poem is constructed into a work of art that successfully transports the reader to experience the emotional pain of the

Wilfred Owen is a tired soldier on the front line during World War I. In the first stanza of Dulce Et Decorum Est he describes the men and the condition they are in and through his language shows that the soldiers deplore the conditions. Owen then moves on to tell us how even in their weak human state the soldiers march on, until the enemy fire 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

Poems using strong poetic technique and devices are able to create a wide range of emotions from the readers. Wilfred Owen’s poetry effectively uses these poetic techniques and devices to not only create unsettling images about war but to provide his opinion about war itself with the use of themes within his poem. The use of these themes explored Owen’s ideas on the futility of war and can be seen in the poems: Anthem for Doomed Youth, Futility and The Next War. The poems provide unsettling images and belief of war through the treatment of death, barbaric nature of war and the futility of war.

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

Particularly during Owen’s time at war, World War I, many people thought that it was noble and glorious honour to go to war, but Owen’s poetry completely disregards that notion and how futile war really is. The title of Dulce Et Decorum Est is Latin for “It is sweet and glorious” and is ironic, due to the fact that that is not what the poem is about, especially as the last two lines state that “The old Lie” is that it is sweet and honourable to die for one’s country, although this is written in Latin in the poem. The