Dulce Et Decorum Est, By Wilfred Owen

824 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Short note on war poetry

Hardships from hostile experiences can lead to the degradation of one's mental and physical state, breaking down their humanity. Wilfred Owen's struggles with the Great War has led to his detailed insights on the state of war, conveying his first-hand experiences as a front-line soldier. 'Dulce et Decorum Est' and 'Insensibility' displays these ideas and moreover, exposes the harsh and inhumane reality of war. Through the use of imagery and metaphors, Owen's ideas about the deterioration of human nature resonates with the reader of the repercussions of war.

Dulce et Decorum Est, through the technique of similes, helps describe the state of war. 'Bent double, like old beggars under sacks' details the health of the young soldiers in war. It …show more content…

'Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers. This metaphor portrays the soldiers as remorseless as Owen describes the floors of the trenches as being 'cobbled', which building roads require cobble. Here, the cobbles are the skulls and sacrifice of fellow soldiers, which shows how accepted death is on the battlefield and ultimately, how insensitive soldiers have become due to death being so prevalent. The most inhumane metaphor in the poem would come from stanza 3. The whole stanza is a metaphor and gives reason for the insensibility the soldiers suffer from. 'Their senses in some scorching cautery of battle'. Cauterising is a process used in war, halting the spread of infection through their destroying flesh would save lives. The soldiers have had their emotions 'cauterised' resulting in their destruction of their humanity and as a result, Owen explains, in order to survive, 'cauterisation' is crucial to deal with the brutality of war, resulting in one's humanity being sacrificed for survival.

Through Owen's recounting of his experiences as a soldier, he can detail the brutality of war and what it can do to ordinary humans. Owen's strong views on war has led to readers sympathising for soldiers and regrettably, shown the true nature of war as not something courageous, but atrocious. War should never have been as it can devolve normal humans into remorseless beings, not able to recover even after going home with loved

Show More
Related

  • Wilfred Owen's Dulce Et Decorum Est, Tim OBrien's The Things They Carried, and Siegfried Sassoon's Suicide in the Trenches

    1362 Words  | 3 Pages

    Just as the poem is written in a rhyme and rhythm that makes poetry easy to follow, the vivid imagery helps one to picture more easily what is going on in the poem. Owen brilliantly chooses words and phrases that illuminate the scene, making the reader feel as if he is physically in the scene along with the characters. For example, Owen describes that the Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots/ But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;/ Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots/ Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind (Gioia 782). A feeling of sadness and pity is felt as one hears the previous words. It is almost as if the scene of the soldiers trudging through the battlefield is being painted for the reader to actually visually ...

    Read More

  • Wilfred Owen's Ability to Draw in the Audience in His Poems, Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori and Anthem for Doomed Youth

    796 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the poem Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori, he shows his feelings of betrayal, pity and the sense of sacrifice of human life due to the war, as the consequences do not result in any good for anyone, especially the family and friends of the victims. The title, when translated to English from Latin, means ‘It is sweet and honourable to die for one’s country’, being very ironic, compared to what he is writing throughout the poem, by his sense of hatred and pity towards war. He starts off with a simile, “like old beggars under sacks”, which does not depict a masculine image, already, ironic to the title, as it is not honourable to die “like old beggars”. Throughout the poem, a very graphical and comfronting image can be pictured in the reader’s head, recounting all of the shocking details of the war, such as the gas, “Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!” which is also a reminder of their youth and innocence, being put into a war where they thought it might be fun. I...

    Read More

  • Two Views of War in Poetry

    480 Words  | 1 Pages

    Wilfred Owen, who fought in The First World War, tells a tale of the reality of war from the trenches. He cuts though the propaganda to show war for what it is to a young soldier, cruel and dark and unmerciful. He describes ...

    Read More

  • Examples Of Dehumanization In Dulce Et Decorum Est

    469 Words  | 1 Pages

    Wilfred Owen's, ‘dulce et decorum est’ allows readers to see what actually happened during warfare, challenging the government's way of recruiting young soldiers (like Owen's at the time) via propaganda and the ideas of war. Owen's challenges these ideas through his poetry by creating sensory imagery through the dehumanization of the soldiers, and by creating irony through juxtaposition and the title. The dehumanization of the soldier is framed by depicting the reality of warfare to the audience by projecting sensory imagery throughout the poem. The government represented war to be for handsome, young, honourable men but Owen's is giving the readers imagery that contradicts those ideas.

    Read More

  • Astonishing Imagery in Wilfred Owen's Poem, Dulce et Decorum Est

    504 Words  | 2 Pages

    The poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ by Wilfred Owen portrays the horrors of World War I with the horrific imagery and the startling use of words he uses. He describes his experience of a gas attack where he lost a member of his squadron and the lasting impact it had on him. He describes how terrible the conditions were for the soldiers and just how bad it was. By doing this he is trying to help stop other soldiers from experiencing what happened in a shortage of time.

    Read More

  • Dulce Et Decorum Est - Critical Response

    1127 Words  | 3 Pages

    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 the condition the soldier is in, and how, even in the time to come he could not forget the images that it left him with. In the last stanza he tells the readers that if we had seen what he had seen then we would never encourage the next generation to fight in a war.

    Read More

  • Wilfred Owen: Human Cruelty

    1377 Words  | 3 Pages

    World War One had an inevitable effect on the lives of many young and naive individuals, including Wilfred Owen, who, like many others, joined the military effort with the belief that he would find honour, wealth and adventure. The optimism which Owen initially had toward the conflict is emphasised in the excerpt, in which he is described as “a young poet…with a romantic view of war common among the young” (narrator), a view which rapidly changed upon reaching the front. Owen presents responders with an overwhelming exploration of human cruelty on other individuals through acts of war and the clash of individual’s opposed feelings influenced by the experiences of human cruelty. This is presented through the horrific nature of war which the

    Read More

  • Wilfred Owen Conflict Analysis

    1305 Words  | 3 Pages

    Human conflict is a violent confrontation between groups of people due to differences in values and beliefs. During World War I, poet and soldier, Wilfred Owen, faced the harsh realities of human conflict, dying at a young age of 25, only six days before the war ended. Owen’s personal encounters during war had a profound influence on his life as reflected in the poems and letters he wrote before his passing. In using a variety of poetic devices to write about the suffering and brutality of war, vividly captured in his poems ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ and ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, Owen effectively conveys his own perspective about human conflict. ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ depicts the horrific scenes on the battlefield and a grotesque death from drowning

    Read More

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

    1056 Words  | 3 Pages

    Wilfred Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” makes the reader acutely aware of the impact of war. The speaker’s experiences with war are vivid and terrible. Through the themes of the poem, his language choices, and contrasting the pleasant title preceding the disturbing content of the poem, he brings attention to his views on war while during the midst of one himself. Owen uses symbolism in form and language to illustrate the horrors the speaker and his comrades go through; and the way he describes the soldiers, as though they are distorted and damaged, parallels how the speaker’s mind is violated and haunted by war.

    Read More

  • Effective Dramatic Imagery in Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est”

    719 Words  | 2 Pages

    Through the use of dramatic imagery in Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est,” Owen is able to recreate a dramatic war scene and put the reader right on the front lines. The use of language is very effective in garnering the readers’ attention and putting the dire images of war into the mind. He emphasizes that war is upsetting and appalling at times. There is nothing sweet about it. He only strengthens his argument by the use of strong descriptive words and vivid figurative language. The utilization of these techniques gives the poem a strong meaning and provides the reader with a vivid portrayal of the events that took place during this grisly occurrence.

    Read More

  • Dulce et Decorum Est

    1612 Words  | 4 Pages

    Next, the soldiers are described as “knock-kneed, coughing like hags”, which once again portrays these young men as sickly old men on their death beds because of the war’s conditions (2).... ... middle of paper ... ... The two-lined third stanza is when the speaker’s argument changes, and he begins to resent the war and the saying, “Dulce et Decorum Est”, as he recalls the sight of the soldier dying from the gas plunging at him.

    Read More

  • Dulce Et Decorum Est And The Inhumanity Of War

    890 Words  | 2 Pages

    Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” depicts the cruelty and the inhumanity of human war, using personal narrative to convey the horrors the narrator experienced. Owen’s stylistic choices and decisions within the poem also contribute to the narrative and the meaning that it expresses; the form of the poem supplements the words themselves to create a structure that enforces its meaning. These formal decisions include several gaps that embody abrupt shift in some organizational or diction-related aspects of the poem, which provide empty spaces for the reader to examine. Like negative space in art silence in music, these gaps within the poem can act as a significant contributor to its overall meaning.

    Read More

  • Dulce Et Decorum Est Figurative Language

    562 Words  | 2 Pages

    In “Dulce et Decorum Est,” WIlfred Owen uses graphic and disturbing imagery, diction, and figurative language to reveal the intense and violent conditions on the battlefield. He uncovers “the old lie” that influences young soldiers and the public to believe that war is heroic, by showing the cruel ways of battle, (27). Wilfred Owen, the author, was a WWI soldier that died exactly one week before the war ended. “Dulce et Decorum Est” means “It is sweet and honorable” in Latin. He tries to say, “It is sweet and honorable to die for one’s country.”

    Read More

  • Wilfred Owen War Poetry Analysis

    1472 Words  | 3 Pages

    Wilfred Owen’s war poetry examines the intense and extraordinary human experience of war. His body of work is clearly concerned with unveiling the real atrocities and devastation wreaked by war, as well as elucidating the falsity manifested by war propaganda. Owen’s poem illuminates the severe and debilitating effect war has upon the young, examining the painful way in which these young soldiers were left to die. ’Dulce Et Decorum Est’, subverts traditional perceptions of war as being honourable, by graphically portraying the debilitating and traumatic consequences of war on the young innocent soldiers. This poem is an attack on the government who use propaganda to encourage generations of ‘boys’ to sacrifice their lives for some ‘desperate

    Read More

  • How Does Owen Present The Reality Of War In Dulce Et Decorum Est

    224 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the beginning and middle of “Dulce et Decorum Est”, Wilfred Owen uses a point of view that is very serious, grim, and eerily calm while using many phrases of imagery to further describe the horrible events as he sees them. Owen purposefully describes the tragic events very in-depth as to draw the reader in and to emphasize the reality of war. Lines five and 6 portray his original point of view. “Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,/But limped on, blood-shod.

    Read More

More about Dulce Et Decorum Est, By Wilfred Owen

Open Document