The Old Lie: Dulce Et Decorum Est

Aia Shalan December 15, 2014
Professor Small Final Essay
Every story can be written with its own personal moral. Sometimes, it is up to the reader to decide which line is fitted to convey the writer’s message. However, this line differs according to the reader’s understanding of the passage. In “Dulce et Decorum Est,” the lines “His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood...The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est,” embody the entire text. These lines embody one different theme and two technical aspects of Owen’s poem: (1) the versions of reality that distinguish between men who fight in war and civilians who are motivated to fight (2) The use of present tense verbs to indicate the ongoing
In order to address the civilians at home, the narrator tries to convey the scene of a soldier who faced a horrible death. The narrator says that maybe “if in smothering dreams, you too could pace.” The narrator creates a distance between soldiers and civilians by using “you” to illustrate that no matter how he tries to help us understand the implications of war, it will still be impossible to fully grasp. Because people who speak of war through patriotism, honor and glory, they blind civilians of war’s true image. The narrator uses gory details to try and get the message across. For example, in the line, “If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood come gargling from the forth corrupted lungs,” Owen begins to tackle the “sweet” and “fitting” way of dying for one’s country. He bitterly shows the civilians one of the many scenes faced at war. The narrator shatters the image of glory and honor as he describes not only the soldier’s death as “obscene as cancer” but also fighting in war. The depiction of the fellow soldier’s death becomes a mirror of the battlefield, with all innocence, glory and patriotism gone. For example, the narrator continues on to describe the war through the eyes of a fellow soldier’s death as “bitter as the cud/of vile incurable sores on innocent tongues.” In these lines, the narrator continues to criticize those who promote going to war as glorious. Searching for the right words to help relay the images of war to the civilians, he describes the fellow soldier’s face as “hanging, like a devil’s sick of sin.” Using the word “devil” helps civilians imagine the worst of the worst. Civilians may begin to question: “How can a devil be sick of sin?” He lives to sin. To reconfirm the two versions of reality the soldier at