A comparison between the poems 'Disabled' and 'Dulce et Decorum est' both written by Wilfred Owen.

Authors Avatar

A comparison between the poems ‘Disabled’ and ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ both written by Wilfred Owen.

      During World War I unthinkable events happened that seem to be impossible to comprehend in today’s society. Some of the incidents encountered by Wilfred Owen have been expressed in such an apposite way that people who have never experienced trench warfare, can emphasize with the sordid and un-palatable conditions and treatment that the soldiers had to suffer.

      One soldier that was able to express his emotions, feelings and the things he had seen was Wilfred Owen. One of his poems called ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ is mainly aimed towards a woman named Jessie Pope who wrote jingoistic propaganda for the “Daily Mail” trying to get young men to sign up for the war by comparing war to a game. At the beginning of the poem he describes with colossal detail what war life was like. Owen at first describes what the soldiers looked like and what condition they were in, in the trenches saying ‘like old beggars’ and ‘coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge.’ These extracts enable me to imagine the soldiers getting really infuriated by the muddy and slippery floor conditions as I have in the same kind of environment. Also ‘floundering like a man in fire or lime’ is also a good description of how the men in the trenches were destitute in the poor conditions they had to endure.

Join now!

      Further on in the poem Owen concentrates more on the physical side of war, as apposed to the mentality side. He expresses how the other soldiers suffered a horrible death of being killed by gas by contrasting the colour of the gas as being like ‘a green sea’ and ‘lime’. He uses a lot of figurative language, which not only endorses the meaning of the words but also gives the reader a stronger perception of the events he had to witness. Another technique that Owen has used is that he has used onomatopoeic language like ‘guttering’ ...

This is a preview of the whole essay