Critical Analysis Of Dulce Et Decorum Est

“Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” or “it is sweet and right to die for one 's country,” is a saying by the great Roman poet Horace. It was used to instill a glory and honor of war in the people going off to fight. During the World War 1 era this was the general feeling of going off to war at the beginning, it was going to be full of honor and glory. Wilfred Owen was one of the youth to get shipped off to war during WWI. While at war he wrote a myriad of poems but the most memorable one, Dulce et Decorum Est, is Owen’s masterpiece. Owen wrote during a very dark and gruesome war and instead of romanticizing it he showed the war as it really was. To some degree, Owen was writing to combat the image of a glorified war and how it was sweet and right to die. He witnessed his comrades die in agony and pain which didn’t seem to align with the ideals of war. Dulce et
Right from the start the poem jumps in to soldiers trudging along. Owen uses metaphors in the first lines to paint the picture: “Bent double, like old beggars, coughing like hags” (1-2). He molds this image of these beat up, “drunk with fatigue” (7), exhausted soldiers walking like zombies back to their camp. You can only imagine what they have been through so far if they are this battered. Then things get even worse, they are under a gas attack. This is where the poem shifts from this slow trudge of soldiers to an “ecstasy of fumbling” (9). Once the gas hits the speaker describes it as a “green sea” of gas. As the poem progresses Owen uses less similes and starts using very graphic language that describes the scene vividly. The way the speaker describes the dead corpse is disturbing, “the white eyes writhing in his face, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs” (19-21) paints a picture of this terrible, agonizing, and haunting image. It really describes the war as it truly