How do the poems ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ and ‘The last Laugh’ reflect the attitude of the poet towards the subject of war?

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Chris Dunn SHK

30/04/07

How do the poems ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ and ‘The last Laugh’ reflect the attitude of the poet towards the subject of war?

     Dulce et Decorum Est and The Last Laugh were written by Wilfred Owen. Wilfred Owen was a soldier during World War 1. He fought on the frontline in Europe for the United Kingdom. He wrote the poems about some of the awful things he had witnessed on the front line. As a soldier he witnessed his fellow soldiers dying in some truly awful ways. During the war your fellow soldiers were like family because you grew really close as you had to rely on each other. World War 1 was a very bloody war with millions of people from all over the world losing their lives for a stupid cause. Wilfred Owen himself was actually killed during the war.

   In ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ he tells the reader of the poem in the first stanza about what it was like for the soldiers who lived constantly on the frontline. He makes the soldiers sound like they are mindless zombies who no longer have any emotions as this is the reality that they are constantly facing day in and day out. Wilfred Owen describes the soldiers as ‘Being drunk with fatigue’ what Owen means by this is that they are so tired it is like they are drunk. In the frontline soldiers could not get much sleep very often. At the beginning of this stanza he starts off by,

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  ‘Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge’

 

  This uses alliteration and describes very well what the soldiers are now like. The first stanza is just setting the scene as to what the soldiers are like. It is all very calm. But then in the second stanza there is a sudden quickening of pace, reflected by a sudden gas attack by the Germans. In the panic Wilfred Owen describes the situation as ‘an ecstasy of fumbling’ as the soldiers are hurrying to get the gas masks on in time ...

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