Dulce Et Decorum Est Analysis
‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ Essay
For years, war and the honour of war has been built up and glorified 'unfairly by the media in cartoons, movies, games, news and even songs as well as warmongers trying to cash in on unsuspecting and gullible young men who want to be recognized as heroes.
Wilfred Owen, who had served in World War 1 and died while defending his country age 25, wrote the poem ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ as an attempt to dismantle the unrealistic expectations about war that boys who are ‘ardent for some desperate glory’ have taken from television and that has been reinforced by warmongers. Conveying horrific and frightening imagery from the war he served in, Owen expresses his strongly anti-war sentiments to the reader. Through the irony found in the ending, horrific imagery and the feeling of surrealism woven into the poem, the poet forces the reader to experience the war, and therefore feel almost as decisively about it as he does.
The three stanzas within this poem all serve a different purpose, each strengthening the influence the poem has on the readers, and developing the messages in a different way. The poem makes such a strong impression because of the effectiveness of each stanza and how successfully the go with each other.
The first stanza is dedicated to establishing in the readers mind just how horrendous the soldiers’ surroundings were, how hopeless their situation was and how near to death they had become. Owen accomplishes the depiction of this scene by use of poetic techniques, the first of which is a simile. The line ‘like old beggars under sacks’ is the first of many similes used in this poem, which stresses the fact that the soldiers were no longer strong, vigorous and healthy young heroes, but were now tired and wretched souls more suitably compared to the sick and decrepit homeless. Not only does this simile paint the image of the soldiers themselves in the readers mind, but it also depicts the conditions the conditions in which they
For years, war and the honour of war has been built up and glorified 'unfairly by the media in cartoons, movies, games, news and even songs as well as warmongers trying to cash in on unsuspecting and gullible young men who want to be recognized as heroes.
Wilfred Owen, who had served in World War 1 and died while defending his country age 25, wrote the poem ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ as an attempt to dismantle the unrealistic expectations about war that boys who are ‘ardent for some desperate glory’ have taken from television and that has been reinforced by warmongers. Conveying horrific and frightening imagery from the war he served in, Owen expresses his strongly anti-war sentiments to the reader. Through the irony found in the ending, horrific imagery and the feeling of surrealism woven into the poem, the poet forces the reader to experience the war, and therefore feel almost as decisively about it as he does.
The three stanzas within this poem all serve a different purpose, each strengthening the influence the poem has on the readers, and developing the messages in a different way. The poem makes such a strong impression because of the effectiveness of each stanza and how successfully the go with each other.
The first stanza is dedicated to establishing in the readers mind just how horrendous the soldiers’ surroundings were, how hopeless their situation was and how near to death they had become. Owen accomplishes the depiction of this scene by use of poetic techniques, the first of which is a simile. The line ‘like old beggars under sacks’ is the first of many similes used in this poem, which stresses the fact that the soldiers were no longer strong, vigorous and healthy young heroes, but were now tired and wretched souls more suitably compared to the sick and decrepit homeless. Not only does this simile paint the image of the soldiers themselves in the readers mind, but it also depicts the conditions the conditions in which they