The Harsh Reality of War in Wilfred Owen’s Poem Dulce et Decorum Est

As the poem continues, Owen emphasizes his fear of being gassed with punctuation. He states: “Gas! GAS! Quick boys!-...”(l.9), which reinforces the stress of the gas bomb being dropped on the unit of men on the battlefield. As the poem closes, Owen demonstrates his terror while watching his friend dying because he breathed in gas. He explains: ”His hanging face, like

If anything is known about war, it progressively gets worse throughout history. The weapons have become far more powerful, the losses are much greater, and worst of all, soldiers visions of hell have become a reality. War, centuries ago, seemed to young eager young men as an adventure, a chance for glory, an honorable way to die; however, these opinions shifted as time went on. Many if not most of the soldiers today go to war to defend their country, their loved ones, and everything else they hold dear in the hopes that the battles they fight will one day come to an end and they will be able to come home. Millions of soldiers kept their journals, shared their own war stories, or have had their legends written and passed down throughout the

Owen begins with a graphic description of men during battle. He uses words such as “old” (1), “hags” (2), “fatigue” (7), and “deaf” to get across the image of men who are worn out, exhausted, and elderly. In the first two quatrains, the iambic pentameter also helps get the point across by putting emphasis on the words stated previously. While this is not the most potent image in the poem, its immediacy works to show the reader

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.

The first part of the poem is about people in a battle and goes on to say they their enemy used some type of poisonous gas and that only one of the young men manages to put on a gas mask in time and that he watched the other ones die. The second part has a man having nightmares of the people he saw died in battle. The part has the man taking the wounded away in a wagon but the men in the wagon are dying. The man goes to say the the people in the wagon are spitting up blood and are looking deathly pale. It ends with the man telling children that the glory in war is a lie. I think that Owen wrote this to spread the word about the horrors of war. I think that this poem also hints at to cruelty and the helplessness in war. It show that human fight one another with little reasons. People have been fighting and kill one another for a long time with far little time of peace and I think that Owen does a nice job of showing

Owen uses vivid and detailed wording to illustrate an image as the poem is read. He uses chilling combat accounts that bring the act of war to life and all the monstrosities with it. To capture the frustrations of the men in their physically and mentally drained, “We cursed through sludge” is used to describe their lack of energy but their will to keep marching on (line 2). To illustrate the hardships faced by the troops who have lost even their boots, Owen uses his skill of imagery to convey and intensify the moment saying, “But limped on, blood-shod” (line 6). Additional phrases used with the intention of imagery are “white eyes writhing in the face” and “blood gargling out from the froth-corrupted lungs” (lines 19, 22). Also, a mental image is painted when the deadly gas is emitted in the air and “an ecstasy of fumbling” occurs which guides one unlucky man to inhale the toxic fumes leading him to “[flounder] like a man in fire or lime” (lines 9, 12). Owen’s approach to imagery enhanced the troublesome patriotic reality and helped the readers understand that war is an ugly

He describes how he sees this nightmarish scene over and over in his own dreams to the reader. The speaker cannot ever escape this horror. Again of the mental image of lack to senses and are used to go down. The word 'guttering' can be used to describe the sound the soldier made during his last breaths as he was 'choking, drowning' to his death. Owen uses images of the soldier's death to give the truth to the reader to a picture of the war.

World War I was unlike the glorified notion that was publicised in propaganda on the home front, as many soldiers believed it was honourable and glorious to die for their country. Instead, men who “marched off to battle with a romantic view of war” were confronted with dreadful conditions of trenches and the horrors of human conflict, as expressed in the poem, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’. Due to the experiences of war, young soldiers had become frail, decrepit and confined, and through the striking comparisons of the similes, “…like old beggars…/ …coughing like hags…” Owen revealed how soldiers were consumed by the harsh realities of war. To further emphasise this idea, his well utilisation of compelling metaphors, specifically in the line, “Drunk

Wilfred Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” was written during the World War I and shows his bitter experience of war. Owen writes about the horror of war that the civilians never see and could never fully understand. He explains in his poem that people will encourage young men to fight for their country, but the truth is, fighting for your country is simply sentencing yourself to an unnecessary death. He make it clear with the poem that he is personally against war and the evil he has seen during the war. Owens illustrated his message through imagery, irony and setting.

Owen has manipulated many poetic techniques and devices in order to re-tell a first hand account of war and persuade the reader in understanding how brutal and savage war was, and the harshly depressing reality of life in the trenches. He has used the device of imagery where in the words are so descriptive that they have created a clear picture in the reader’s head and makes them feel as though they too are in the trench witnessing the

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

Wilfred Owen’s poem, “Dulce et Decorum Est”, portrays the war well and what it leaves behind. This poem shows the brutality of war and uses imagery to describe the situations that the soldiers face every day. It also shows how war can dehumanize soldiers by ruining their physical and emotional state of mind.

Wilfred Owen’s representation of the soldier’s mental and physical suffering is confronting because his anti-war stance enables him to reveal the brutal and inhumane reality of the battlefield to the public in order to challenge the social paradigm of going to war is honourable and glorious, the idea that people held during WWI period. This representation of human suffrage is deliberately presented throughout Owen’s poem. His poems, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’, written in 1920 and ‘Anthem For Doomed Youth’ written in 1917 captures the destructiveness side on soldiers of war. ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ is an account of Owen’s first hand experience of war. This poem illustrates the physical distortion confronted by the soldiers as a result of war.

‘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.