The poem we have been analysing in class, Dulce et Decorum Est, was written by a man named Wilfred Owen. Wilfred Owen was a soldier in the first world war and was born on the 18th of March 1893, and died on the 4th of November 1918, a week before the end of the first world war.
In this poem, Owen’s objective is to show the horror and reality of war, and to set this horror against the way in which war was often glorified. His objection, the glorification of war is reflected in the title, “Dulce et Decorum Est” This is translated as “It is sweet and glorious”. Wilfred Owen uses this as a form of irony, to draw in the reader’s attention. It was especially meant for another war poet, Jesse Pope. She wrote about all the good and positive reasons for war, and tried to encourage men to go and fight for their country.
You can easily feel how Wilfred Owen felt about the first world war. His use of adjectives like “bitter”, “helpless” and “smothering dreams” and the use of imagery, give us a clear picture of what it was like. These words are used to convey the ugliness, fear, poignancy and the pain of the war. Wilfred Owen uses clear tones throughout the poem help us to understand how he felt, and why he felt this way. In most of the poem, the tone is quite angry, due to the choice of words and how they are used. Owen gives us graphic descriptions, speaking in a very direct and straight forward way. His use of the word “you” in the third stanza, emphasizes my point clearly. He uses this to draw us in, and to make us feel how he felt. Not only does he make us feel how he felt, but the poet makes us use our senses. He makes us hear this one man dying, struggling for life. He makes us taste the bitterness of war, and the reality of it. All of these techniques are used in the poem, because he wants us to be shocked at the reality that he is presenting.
In his illustration of war, Owen describes an incident of exhausted soldiers