Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen.

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Stephanie Louise Ireland 4Cb

Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen

The poem Dulce et Decorum Est, by Wilfred Owen is a poem about his feelings on the First World War. He writes the poem through the eyes of a soldier in the trenches, and describes what life is like for a soldier during the First World War. He is able to illustrate that War is evil and that the soldiers who are these brave men are reduced to being no more than beggars!

      Owen sets the scene with his opening stanza where he compares the soldiers with beggars hurled up in the trenches:

       “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed                                                                                                 through sludge,”

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This image Owen opens with helped me create a picture of the soldiers all curled up in the trenches curled up together, like homeless people you see on the streets. The way he says “… we…” suggests he was amongst the soldiers in the trenches; this helps me believe what Owen is saying because he was actually there.

      In stanza two Owen describes a gas attack on the soldiers in the trenches and how one soldier alerts the others, and instructs them to put their gas masks on:

      “Gas! GAS! Quick, boys…”

Owen ...

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