Depicting the ungracious trench life during 1915 till 1918, Wilfred Owen is one of the most prominent poets from his genre. By using many well-known techniques in poetry, Wilfred Owen successfully characterizes his closed form poems through personification, Alliteration, and allegory. Illustrating a gas attack upon a trench, Dulce et Decorum Est is a embittered first hand portrayal of his first hand experience during the war. The poem is primarily written in three sections: an account of the soldiers withdrawing from the battlefield; a surprise gas attack; and lastly a stanza confronting those exalting the war.
Beginning with a series of descriptions about the soldiers returning from the frontline, Owen shows us how these men contradict the model soldier portrayed in the recruitment posters. The soldiers that we see now have become beaten down with pain, and exhaustion: “old beggars, bent double” and “hags”. Here Owens shows us the true reality of war, and its impact upon the soldiers, he; shows us how the everyday combat has taken its toll upon the generation, practically taken out the whole cohort. Wilfred Owen goes on to describe the soldiers in even deeper description, and along the way he uses the term “blood-shod”. The term “blood-Shod” brings the idea of blood shed, again representing the overall scene of weariness, and death. With the final line of the stanza being a personification of the “Five-Nines dropping behind”, we begin to see that war is not such a wonderful thing. This may be an allegory, where Owen actually states how it is not the ground that is “tired” and “outstripped”, but in fact it is the soldiers who are beaten down.
Jolted from the previous somnambulant genre of the first stanza, the reader is greet...
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...meet to die for one’s country. Taken from the opening lines of an Ode by Horace, it was frequently used to urge young men to enlist. It is the serving up of spewed out, second hand patriotism from a previous era, when war was considered valiant and heroic, that Owen compares to the “incurable sores on innocent tongues”.
Although loosely written in iambic pentameter, the variations in the syllable counts for each line, added to the use of caesura, prevent any flow or rhythm in the poem. Owen wanted to break with tradition to show how moral values had broken down. He also broke with traditional language and imagery in an attempt to shock the complacent who send young men to their deaths based upon “The old lie”. The Latin used at the end of the poem means 'It is sweet and honorable to die for your country', a concept Owen is strongly denying. This is an allegory.
Wilfred Owen expresses his feelings about war in “Anthem for a Doomed Youth”, which revolves around the events that took place in World War I. Throughout the sonnet, the speaker talks bitterly about modern warfare, noting the harsh sounds of war and questioning the treatment of the soldiers that perish. In the octave, the speaker wonders what can be done to honor the soldiers that died, but realizes negatively that the soldiers only receive death instead of ceremonies. In the sestet, the speaker expands upon this idea of a proper ceremony for the deceased soldiers, saying that the families must be the ones to properly honor their dead. Owen’s use of the Petrarchan sonnet with a Shakespearean rhyme scheme, helps him express his frustration about war and its subsequent treatment of the dead.
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 ...
Another tool in developing the effectiveness of the poem is the excellent use of diction. The word "blood-shod" explains how the troops have been on their feet for days without rest. Also, words like "guttering", "choking", and "drowning" shows us that the troops are suffering in extreme pain and misery. If you haven't noticed, most of these words are examples of cacophony, which are words with harsh and discordant sounds. As this poem is about how harsh and terrible war is, Owen's use of cacophony is very effective in generating the tone of the poem.
Owen opens his poem with a strong simile that compares the soldiers to old people that may be hunch-backed. ‘Bent double, like old beggars like sacks.’ ‘like sacks’ suggests the image that the soldiers are like homeless people at the side of a street that is all dirty. This highlights that the clothes they were wearing were al...
portrays them to be. The speaker chooses words such as “bent double, like old baggers” and “knock-kneed” (Owens 1-2) to expose the discomfort and effects that war has on young soldiers. The soldiers are discreetly compared to crippled old men which emphasizes just how badly war has affected their bodies, stripping them of their health, making them weak and helpless like “old beggars” (Owen 1). Furthermore, the speaker expresses his experience as a sold...
Owen uses imagery constantly to convey the conditions and feelings experienced during this war. Firstly I will be exploring Metaphor as it is used so much in this poem. The first metaphor which I will examine is: “Haunting Flares” on line 3 of the first stanza. This quote has so many connotations, my first opinion on this was that the flares which the enemy are firing to light up the battle field are said to be representing the souls of the soldiers fallen comrades. This could also be said to represent the power the enemy has on their own mortality as the bright flares would light up the battle-field exposing everything to their view, this indicates that the enemy always seem to have power upon the soldiers, almost godly. The second metaphor which I will explore is:
Owen as a young soldier held the same romantic view on war as majority of the other naive soldiers who thought that war would be an exciting adventure. The documentary extract illustrates how markedly Owen’s perspective of the war changed, as noted in a letter to his mother while he was still in the front lines: “But extra for me, there is the universal perversion of ugliness, the distortion of the dead ... that is what saps the soldierly spirit.” In ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’, Owen’s change of heart is evident through the irony of the poem title and the ending line “The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est, Pro patria mori.”, an allusion to the Roman axiom made famous by Horace, which translates to “The old Lie; It is sweet and right to die for your country.”. The line depicts Owen’s realisation that the horrific nature of war through human conflict is not sweet and right at all, rather, it is appalling and “bitter as the cud” as death is always present on the battlefield. Additionally, Owen indirectly responds to Jessie Pope’s poetry, a pro-war poetess, through the reference “My friend, you would not tell with such high zest… The old lie…”, further highlighting his changed perspective towards the war which has been influenced
Owen’s poem uses symbolism to bring home the harsh reality of war the speaker has experienced and forces the reader to think about the reality presented in romanticized poetry that treats war gently. He utilizes language that imparts the speakers experiences, as well as what he, his companions, and the dying man feels. People really die and suffer and live through nightmares during a war; Owen forcefully demonstrates this in “Dulce et Decorum Est”. He examines the horrific quality of World War I and transports the reader into the intense imagery of the emotion and experience of the speaker.
The similes and metaphors used by Owen illustrate very negative war scenes throughout the poem, depicting extreme suffering of young men fighting during World War I. The first simile used by Owen describes the soldiers as “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks”, giving them sickly, wounded, and exhausted attributes from battle and lack of rest (1). Next, the soldiers are described as “Knock-kneed, coughing like hags”, which once again portrays these young men as sick...
Wilfred Owen's poem "Dulce Et Decorum Est" was written during his World War I experience. Owen, an officer in the British Army, deeply opposed the intervention of one nation into another. His poem explains how the British press and public comforted themselves with the fact that all the young men dying in the war were dieing noble, heroic deaths. The reality was quite different: They were dieing obscene and terrible deaths. Owen wanted to throw the war in the face of the reader to illustrate how vile and inhumane it really was. He explains in his poem that people will encourage you to fight for your country, but, in reality, fighting for your country is simply sentencing yourself to an unnecessary death. The breaks throughout the poem indicate the clear opposition that Owen strikes up. The title of the poem means "It is good and proper to die for your country," and then Owen continues his poem by ending that the title is, in fact, a lie.
The tone is bitter and intense in a realistic way. It is achieved by the vivid and gruesome images in the poem. Wilfred Owen 's use of imagery in this poem is by depicting emotional, nightmarish, and vivid words to capture the haunting encounters of WWI that soldiers went through. In the first stanza, Owen depicts his fellow soldiers struggling through the battlefield, but their terrible health conditions prevent them from their strong actions in the war. When Owen says, “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, knock-kneed, coughing like hags” (lines 1-2). This provides the readers with an unexpected view and appearance of soldiers, as they usually picture as strong, noble, and brawny-looking men. Soldiers sacrifice themselves to fight for their country and are exhausted from their unhealthy lifestyle. In lines 7-8, “Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots of gas-shells dropping softly behind,” they have lost the facade of humanity and their bodies are all wearied and weak on their march. This reveals a glimpse at the soldiers’ actions, as well as inferring to a psychological effect of the war. Then in line 5, “Men marched asleep,” the author is making abnormality to be one of the major purposes of the war, that it
... Instead of idealizing war in a romantic way, war poets such as Wilfred Owen aimed to expose gruesome truths about these wars and how they impacted lives. It points a finger and criticizes the governments and authorities that wage these wars but don’t fight in them themselves but rather watch as lives are lost. It exposes propaganda for what it is, a tool for brainwashing. It puts into question the notion of dying for ones country to be noble, honourable and admirable.
World War I impacted poetry profoundly. Poets who served in the war were using poetry to share their horrific stories about the hardships they faced. These poets became known as “war poets.” They wrote about the traumatic, life changing experiences that haunted them once the war was over. Intense poems started emerging that portrayed the mental and physical struggles soldiers faced. Two examples of the impact that World War I had on poetry is seen in the poems “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen and “Repression of War Experience” by Siegfried Sassoon.
At this point, Owen had faced the death of many of his comrades, and each time his thoughts were the same. “…not that they have died in vain, but that they have died without ceremony” (Cash). Owen believed the war to be one which was fought in vain. While these men were risking their lives for their country, they did not fully understand why they were fighting. This war would take everything from them, including their ability to have a proper funeral. Owen goes through his poem defining the different feelings the men are capable of feeling due to the “insensibility” of the war. In stanza II, Owen states one of the biggest problems the men seem to face, “And some cease feeling. Even themselves or for themselves” (Owen). The horror of the war has left the men feeling numb. They no longer believe they are capable of making it out alive or if they have the ability to help their comrades save themselves. They have become immune to the horrors of the war, however; it has left them empty and lost. In stanza III, Owen goes on to explain how those who have lost their imagination are deemed insensible. During war, imagination was considered a burden, and those without it were got through the war in a different way. They no longer feared the sight of bullets or their
Owen also informs the readers that fighting for one’s country is a show of patriotism, but dying in a brutal manner for that course is insipid and unpleasant. This study is significant in exploring all these ideas as they manifest in the piece by Owen. Owen’s Arguments