The poet is saying that people should not talk about war as enthusiastically as it gives the impression that war is glorious. Furthermore, he says that the idea that ’it is sweet and right’ to die for your country is entirely untrue. Through this, we are able to form the opinion that war is not okay because it is a serious thing that carries many negative consequences. In Wilfred Owen’s poem Dolce et Decorum est, the use of similes conveys the harsh reality of war on soldiers as it changes them dramatically and kills the majority of them. In the first two lines of the poem, Owen uses the similes “Bent double like old beggars under sacks, knocked kneed, coughing like hags” to paint a grim picture in readers minds of how the soldiers were.
I am going to do this by indicating what methods and techniques they use to affect the reader and make them feel emotion towards the soldiers. Owen uses irony with the title Dulce et decorum est because it translates to it is a “Sweet and right thing”. This is irony because the poem is trying to say that war is bad and not a sweet and right thing. Owen also uses these words to hit out to Jessie Pope, who was a propaganda poet and Owen disliked her. Pope thinks that war was good and it was Ok to die during it but Owen strongly disagreed with that.
Gas! Quick, boys! !” this achieves the sense of haste the writer was trying to achieve by using short sentences and exclamation marks to grab the attention of the reader, also this contrasts with the first verse describing the sense of exhaustion to the one of extreme panic and anger. “Owen’s fear of the ‘haunting flares’ creates the impression that war is a nightmarish and horrific experience. The simile that compares the soldiers with coughing ‘hags’ emphasises this and the corrupt, unhealthy connotations
Owen highlights such unjust experiences of the soldiers to augment his argument against the bureaucracy. Parable of the old man and the young is a didactic poem which alludes to a story in Genesis 22:5 and is about Abrams sacrifice to a higher power. In WW1, many soldiers were being sent to fight in an unnecessary war, killing thousands upon thousands of men, for the aid of foreign power. This notion of injustice can be seen in ‘Parable’ where an ‘angel’ tries to ‘offer the Ram of pride instead of him’ to Abram. The biblical allusion of the term ‘angel’ symbolises a moral conscience, in the hope of changing Abrams mind, as well as on a didactic level, symbolising the mothers and loved ones of the soldiers.
Throughout the poem erotic love is being compared to the "brotherly love" experienced by the soldiers. Erotic love is seen as superficial as nothing can compare to the hardships, tragedy and loss the soldiers had to go through each day an example where this is prevalent is "Red lips are not so red/As the stained stones kissed by the English dead." Owen uses red lips a symbol of sensuality and eroticism against the staining of stones kissed. The reader can assume that unlike the brotherly love the sensuality symbol of ‘red lips’ is not as red or ‘powerful’ as the staining brotherly love amongst soldiers. Owen seems to suggest that the artificialities of love pale in comparison to the true honour and love of men on the battlefield – men who cough, struggle, and die.
Whilst this is undoubtedly the case the vast amounts of hatred and blame placed on Pope, in particular by Wilfred Owen and other prominent third stage poets, is misplaced. Much more likely this was simply Pope's idealistic and ignorant mindset of the war, and not as is placed heavily upon her, a call to send boys to their death. Pope, in all probability viewed the cases of conscience
Owen wants his reader to feel exactly what he felt about the war, persuade his reader to believe the terror, pain and torture of the war, how devastating can a war effect a human being. He uses imagery and innovative metaphors through the poem. In the first two lines, ‘Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge’, Owen is using figurative language combined with simile and alliteration literary devises to reveal the reality of the war. Soldiers are
Owen compares soldiers fighting in war to sick old men because it shows that soldiers are like outcasts from society. At the top left of the poster, the image shown represents the difficulty and the terrible physical outcomes, soldiers found travelling on ground particularly in sludges as Wilfred Owen states in the first stanza: “Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge” The use of the word Knock-kneed is alliteration for emphasis, a hard, staccato sound to echo the harsh mood of these lines and soldier’s misery. It stresses echo the brutality of the soldiers’ destruction, their transformation from healthy young men into ‘beggars’ and ‘hags’. The use of the word coughing compares men to sick women, showing how they are unrecognisable; they have lost their masculinity, youth, health and therefore are now deemed to be outcast’s within the society. The word sludge is onomatopoeia to imply how heavy and difficult the ground is to cross for soldiers.
. However, Owen uses the word ‘Exposure’ to relay a different meaning, that the human enemy is not the only danger out there, and to show another price paid by the soldiers during wartime. Owen writes, “…in the merciless east winds that knive us.” His personification of the elements is not only to have a greater effect on the reader and help them to sympathise with the suffering of the soldiers, but to show a physiological effect of fighting, that once a soldier has been to war, everything is seen in terms of war so the elements are now seen as an enemy. ‘Disabled’ introduces a soldier, a paraplegic who has obviously had both legs amputated which is shown in the line, “Legless, sewn short at elbow.” In ‘Disabled’, Owen shows that the war has not only affected his physiology but
Owen commented on his poetry that ‘my subject is war, and the pity of it… all a poet can do is warn.’ Owen and Sassoon were both trying to warn young men against war and inform the public on how brutal and disgusting war actually is In both poems, after describing the obscene conditions of war and the impact that these conditions had on the soldiers, the poets dedicated a stanza to condemning the reader on any encouragement they may have had towards young men going to war. They did this through the use of personal pronouns. In ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ Owen condemns the use of the saying “Dulce et Decorum est pro patria mori” (It is sweet and fitting to die for your country) by using personal pronouns to involve the reader in the reality of war “If you could hear at every jolt/ the blood come gargling from the froth corrupted lungs… my friend you would not tell with such high zest… the old lie: Dulce et Decorum est pro patria mori.” In ‘Suicide in the trenches’ personal pronouns are also used to disapprove of the encouragement of war “You smug faced crowds… who cheer when soldier lads march by/ sneak home and pray you’ll never know/ the hell where youth and laughter go.” Personal pronouns are used in order to involve the