Comparison Of Dulce Et Decorum Est And Mental Cases

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Recommended: Discussing the history and purpose of War Poetry

Wilfred Owen was one of the leading poets of the First World War. Owen not only saw the war through his own eyes but experienced the pain and suffering of the soldiers in battle and as patients he encountered at the psychiatric hospital. These first hand accounts of war based on Owen’s real life experience make his poems more vivid and real to the reader.

These men’s horrific experiences of war depicted in Owen’s two poems ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ and ‘Mental Cases’ show the effects of war on the solders from a strong anti war perspective. ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ highlights the physical destruction of war and ‘Mental Cases’ expresses just how damaging war is psychologically. The two poems success is due to the fact that they deal with the issues of war, something Wilfred Owen was extremely passionate about. War remains …show more content…

Owen hoped that by sharing his poems, readers might become more educated about what war is really like instead of being drawn in by propaganda used to glorify war and dying for your country.

Owen’s first poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ is about the physical destruction of war, with each stanza of the poem expressing Owen’s horrific and tragic descriptions of being a soldier of World War I and suffering a poisonous gas attack. In stanza one, Owen uses similes to give images of broken worn out men, in contrast with the patriotic title of the poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ meaning, it is sweet and right to die for your country. The use of similes such as ‘Bent double, like old beggars under sacks’ show the loss of youth the men

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