In “Dulce et Decorum est” one particular man is severely suffering from an awful gas attack. The gas is entering his lungs and drowning them, the rest of his friends have to merely watch as he is “Guttering and choking”. This would be a traumatic scene to experience as well as to witness; it would probably mentally scar the soldiers. At one point the Soldier dying directly asks the narrator for help, this is a very prominent part of the poem and emphasises the pure desperation. Also, similarly to “The Send Off” Owen continuously uses sarcastic and rude comments towards the government.
This simile is an important contrast of the information people were fed at the time of soldiers being strong and proud. Owen strips away the image of a glorified war to reveal the bitter and cruel nature of the war. The bitter imagery “Coughing like hags” and “but limped on” also develops the idea of these young man seeming old. Owen takes pity on these tired and weary soldiers as he describes them in the most unglamorous, inglorious manner. The statement “all went lame, all blind’, while being somewhat hyperbolic suggests that the soldiers had lost all previous objectives of war along with the line “cursed through sludge”.
The Holocaust ruined numerous lives, including that of Evelyn Roman, who wrote “Aftermath”: a sorrowful poem that described her feelings about the concentration camps. Wiesel and Roman both share different and insightful outlooks about their experiences in the toughest part of their lives. They still remember a great deal of details “fifty years after the fact…” that they wish could vanish in an instant (1). Wiesel and Roman wondered every minute why they endured those experiences: no human deserves the horror they survived. Knowing that someone actually lived these stories made it almost unbearable to
This positive representation of conflict could be linked to Tennyson’s role of Poet Laureate under Queen Victoria’s reign. On the other hand Futility could be considered as an elegy for the unnamed solider and opens with a tender and sad tone shifting to pointlessness in the second stanza. The use of the pronoun him in the opening line suggests this could be any soldier from World War one demonstrating the number of men who would remain unnamed and unclaimed during this conflict and how bad it was that so many people died, and even the most patriotic soldiers would still die, unnamed in the end. The Charge of the light Brigade comprises of six stanzas, of varying in length from six to twelve lines and goes in chronological order. This could offer the reader the sense of riding in to the battle with the soldiers.
One of the soldiers fails to fit the gas mask in time, and Owen masterfully describes himself witnessing the soldier’s gruesome death. Owen ends the poem with the Latin proverb from Horace's Odes (III.2.13) ‘Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori’, meaning 'It is sweet and proper to die for one's country' (Dr. Stuart Lee, 1997). With those last few lines, Owen expresses his deepest disapproval of the war. He is rejecting the traditional view that glorifies war, calling it ‘The old Lie’ (line 27). Owen is addressing the reader, who possibly doesn’t have the first hand experience of the war, and criticising the enthusiasm with which the war is described, particularly to vulnerable children (BBC, 2013).
Not only are their lives wasted, gone without the holy ritual of funeral, but the lives of their loved ones at home are also ruined. This poem starts off at a quick pace, and then continues to decelerate throughout the poem, drawing to a slow, solemn and sombre close. Throughout this poem the traditional feel of an elaborate ceremonial of a Victorian style funeral is constantly compared and contrasted to the ways in which men died in the war. The title 'Anthem for Doomed Youth,' with anthems usually being associated with love and passion, is very deliberately ironic. It is a way in which Owen shows how ridiculous he really thought the war was.
He further portrays their dehumanised state through religious diction, ‘Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows’ to create a visual of soldiers rocking back and forth, trying to shake off their mental torment. This image is enhanced in the metaphorical hellish existence, ‘purgatory shadows’ to exemplify their eternal suffering. He portrays the soldiers losing their bodily functions and resembling animals in the rhetorical simile ‘baring teeth that leers like skulls wicked?’ This allows Owen to effectively show the audience the agony of war. He portrays the living hell of war that these soldiers relive day after day through personification,’ – these are men whose minds the dead have ravished. Their torment is reinforced in the juxtaposition, ‘treading blood from lungs that had once loved laughter’ to convey an image of these soldiers walking over decapitated corpses to emphasise the horror while humanising the dead men that ‘loved
The Disconcerting Truth of War “Distance was safety. Space was asylum,” (32). Findley exhibits that war is a mirror into the world of loneliness and depression. Life, love and death are a continuous cycle saddened by loss. Loneliness, like many other misleading emotions can lead to insanity.
Poem Essay: Dulce et Decorum Est Hour 3 AP Lit and Comp Stippel January 26, 2015 Dulce et Decorum Est Wilfred Owen, 1893 - 1918 Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind. Gas!
HOW DOES WILFRED OWEN CONVEY THE HORRORS OF WAR IN POETRY ? Many of Owen's poems direct anger towards the generals and those at home who have encouraged war.Owen's war poetry is a passionate expression of outrage at the horrors of war and of pity for the young soldiers sacrificed in it. It is dramatic and memorable, whether describing physical horror, such as in 'Dulce et Decorum Est' or mental torment such as in' Disabled'. His poetry evokes more from us than simple disgust and sympathy. Owen sympathizes with the vain young men who have no idea of the horrors of war, who are 'seduced' by others (Jessie Pope) and the recruiting posters.