Analysis Of All Quiet On The Western Front By Wilfred Owen

A summary of the first stanza is it describes soldiers who are hunched over carrying their gear through thick sludge. Some of the soldiers walking had lost their boots in battle, so they now have bloody feet, yet they still trudged through. They had been deafened earlier by the sounds of artillery and gas shells, and to add to that they were exhausted. The second stanza tells us the soldiers are bombarded by gas, and they hurry to put their masks on, but some soldiers unfortunately were not able to put them on in time. The narrator (Owen), who is a soldier, lost his comrade right before his own eyes. The third couplet shows us that the narrator is asking himself whether or not this is a dream when he says “In all my dreams before my helpless
The story is told by a soldier, (Owen) in first person perspective, which puts us right on the spot, and we feel every moment of the action that is taking place. The next thing to notice is that the poem is mostly iambic pentameter, the reason I say mostly is that on some lines such as line 16, has more than ten syllables. The rhyme scheme is in ABABCDCD form. This not only makes the poem flow freely, it also keeps us interested. Also note the imagery Owen uses, these are all of the brutal flash backs of his in the war. The name of the poem “Dulce Et Decorum Est” is “a Latin saying that means sweet and right” (Roberts) , and the poem ends with “Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori” “which means it is sweet and right to die for your country”
We can infer the coughing is from the poison gas and the smoke in the air and they are exhausted because the gear they are carrying is extremely heavy. Lines 3 to 4 tell us the battle may be over because the soldiers are walking to base. Owen refers to a “distant rest” in the poem, which may be hope that the war is almost over, and the soldiers may finally be going back home. Lines 5 and 6 show us that these soldiers have wounds from the battle, He is telling us that the soldiers are determined to keep marching, and that these soldiers are almost invincible and will not go down without a fight. When line 7 says the soldiers are “drunk with fatigue”, it could be the soldiers are not only tired from the battle, but they may be tired of fighting over all. The war may be a pointless chore in their eyes and they may feel like pawns of the country they are fighting for. The eighth line describes to us the “five-nines” being dropped, which are 5.9 caliber explosive gas shells which were used in the war. These artillery shells are the gas shells that were used in the second stanza in line 9. There is an immediate rush of adrenaline as the soldiers scrambling and “fumbling” to get their masks on in the small amount of time they have, some soldiers were unfortunate. The scene was so