Dulce Et Decorum Est

The melancholically aggrieved war poet Wilfred Owen is successful in expressing his bitterness, anger and disgust towards war throughout his war anthology. Owens poetry goes behind closed curtains into exploring and giving a taste of the inner realities of war and the sacrificed young soldiers, who have been deceived by political authorities into sacrificing their essence, lives and minds. Through his poem Dulce et Decorum est, Owen conveys the dehumanising horrors and worthlessness of war which overshadow the patriotic devotion of those who glamorise it. The Demonisation of war is portrayed via an array of graphic Imagery, changing rhythm and extremely in-depth descriptions. Dulce et Decorum est is a World War One poem about young seduced
Via the graphical accounts and powerful writing devices of alliteration and hyperbolised similes to allow responders a sense of scene and atmosphere of total horror, with the cries of soldiers echoing horrors, but continuing to mock “Bent doubles.” The additional alliterative repetition of “Knock kneed” in comparison to “Hags” compares a soldiers coughing to the coughing of a witch. All of this is just compressed in the first two lines taking its effect on the responder. The alliterative description of “Men marched asleep” further emphasises the men’s exhaustion and their need for light of spirit as they were so broken. The pun “blood-shod” along with the images of “lame”, “blind”, “drunk with fatigue” in the next two lines takes the glory of war away. Finally the stanza concludes with the oxymoron sound of “gas-shells dropping softly behind.” Owen has depicted the brutality of war along with the dehumanising horrors of war through these powerful writing
Although this stanza is full of action the main concept Owen is portraying here is the Dishonesty of war which is ‘friendship and loyalty’. The patriotic cliché of ‘solider sticking together in war’ is proven to be a lie with the shock images and the simile of “someone still yelling”, “like a man in fire or lime”, “as under a green sea I saw him drowning”. Through this the question of where is the loyalty of soldiers sticking together helping each other out arises, when one is drowning in his own blood while the others look on helpless. Yet again Owen has illustrated the horrors of war, not only do these soldiers suffer from the pain but also the seclusion and isolation that if they fall there’s a chance they might stay there as there is no one brave or loyal enough to risk their own life to try and help