Dulce Et Decorum Est Conflict

Wilfred Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum est” has historical conflict behind it. In the first two lines of the second stanza of this poem, Owen hints that the “distant rest” may be death because World War 1 killed 9 million people and left millions of other injured both mentally and physically . Another event that Wilfred eluded to is the use of the machine gun and trench warfare, two new inventions and ideas introduced in the Great War. In following one and a half lines of “Dulce et Decorum est”, Owen uses imagery “Many lost their boots, but limped on blood-shod”, he is painting a picture to the reader showing them that soldiers lost limbs and parts of themselves during this ubiquitous war. Next, in lines 6-8, Owen Wilfred uses his background from the war in the line “all went lame”, to convey that even though only nine countries were major participants in the war, every country’s people were effected by someway throughout this world-wide war.

During the concluding sentence of the first stanza and the opening sentences in the following stanza, the author mentions “gas-shells” and “helmets”, now better known as gas masks, two inventions first used during World War 1.

Wilfred Owen expresses the horror of fighting in war in the last few lines of his third stanza and in the fourth, by describing the event of a fellow soldier dieing due to a gas shell. Throughout the whole fifth stanza, Owen recounts the death of this solider in rigorous detail therefore he illustrates how gruesome soldiers’ deaths and World War 1 overall were. Propaganda was used all over the world during World War 1 to promote nationalism and get men to fight in the war. In the last stanza of this poem Owen blames all those people who promoted propaganda for getting himself and all others into this horrific

war. Throughout Wilfred Owen’s whole poem, historical context reveals itself through his diction, use of figurative language, symbolism and imagery.
Another one of Wilfred Owen’s poems is “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, this poem has historical context behind it also since the poem is about World War 1. In the opening line, Owen suggests that all the nine million soldiers who died during this war were slaughter just like cattle, he displays his thought through this simile “who die as cattle?”. The author mentions guns in the following line which were used a great deal in this war. Throughout lines 3-4, the word “Only” is repeated from line 2 and again Owen is making comparison of people to animals and guns to prayers. Owen criticizes the heads of the countries fighting in the war by implying that no one cares for the people dieing in the field, they only care about killing other countries’ citizens and when the war ends millions of boys who’s lives just started have actually ended due to this war with a large death toll.In the last stanza of “Anthem for Doomed Youth” Owen illustrates the soldiers families and friends mourning their love ones throughout their funerals, memorial services, and in everyday life. Throughout Owen’s poem “Anthem or Doomed Youth” he uses metaphors, imagery, symbolism and other literary elements to reveal historical evidents.