How vividly does Wilfred Owen describe war and its consequences in the poem “Dulce Et Decorum Est”?
How vividly does Wilfred Owen describe war and its consequences in the poem “Dulce Et Decorum Est”? Wilfred Owen's poem “Dulce Et Decorum Est” was written during his World War I experience. Owen was an officer in the British Army, who deeply opposed the intervention of one nation into another. His poem explains how the British press and public comforted themselves with the fact that, terrible that is was, all the young men dying in the war were dieing noble, heroic deaths. The reality was quite different: They were dieing obscene and terrible deaths. Owen wanted to try to hurl the pain of war in the face of the reader to illustrate how vile and inhumane it really was. Owen uses language very effectively to fulfil his intentions. The beginning sentence “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks” instantly creates an image in our minds of battle weary men, dirty and of poor health. These men have had their statuses reduced to those of beggars’. We think of soldiers as being smart and attentive but the poet uses phrases, which indicate that the violent nature of war has reduced these soldiers to being undignified beings. Some more examples, which he uses to indicate that the soldiers have little pride left, are “coughing like hags”, “began to trudge” and “fumbling”, as these are all words
with which we do not associate with soldiers’ behaviour. We are unfamiliar with the graphic term “blood-shod”, which is a visual indicator that the men are wearing their own blood. However we do not normally use the word “shod” to mean “wearing”, instead we use it more widely to talk about shooing horses. This makes us realise the possibility that the poet might be trying to suggest that there is a significant similarity between the status of the horses and the men. That is to say that the men have been reduced to the same level as horses, as well ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
with which we do not associate with soldiers’ behaviour. We are unfamiliar with the graphic term “blood-shod”, which is a visual indicator that the men are wearing their own blood. However we do not normally use the word “shod” to mean “wearing”, instead we use it more widely to talk about shooing horses. This makes us realise the possibility that the poet might be trying to suggest that there is a significant similarity between the status of the horses and the men. That is to say that the men have been reduced to the same level as horses, as well as beggars, as I mentioned above. I find that the phrase ”drunk with fatigue” is very effective at describing the feeling of being overcome with tiredness. This is because I link the word “drunk” with being an uncontrollable force which takes over your whole body so “drunk with fatigue” would mean being controlled by tiredness, almost zombie-like. The second verse effectively describes in great detail the death of a fellow comrade who experiences a painful death after coming in to contact with the lethal green gas. In the first line, we come across the phrase “an ecstasy of fumbling” as the soldiers put on their gas masks. I think that the word ecstasy is a very appropriate word to describe the adrenaline rush, which the men experienced in a hurry to save themselves. The ecstasy was from the breaking out of the monotony of war. There is then a mention of “clumsy helmets”. Your attention is momentarily drawn to this line because you wonder how helmets can be clumsy, but then you realise that the word clumsy is referring to the fumbling soldiers in the hysteria of the situation. In the next four lines of the verse, there is a vivid, visual description of the death of the man who failed to put his helmet on in time. The man’s death is described as a drowning in a green sea of gas. The sea, a violent and turbulent place symbolises the violence of war. The overpowering, deadly gas (like the overpowering sea) rose above his head and “drowned” him in the same way that the sea might drown a person. In the next two-line verse, Owen describes how the death he is witnessing is in the realm of a dream, but more of a nightmare with the horror of a moan falling towards him in the throes of death, but he is a statue, incapable of helping the poor innocent man who is trying to fight a battle for his life, which cannot possibly be won. In the second line of the final verse, he talks about the wagon, which they “flung” the dead body in. There is a sense of vast irony afflicted upon the reader whilst reading this line because at the time war was honourable, and to die for your country would be a glorious death, but there is no honour in the death of this man as he is treated as carelessly as rags and thrown into the wagon. To describe the look on the soldiers face the line “his hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin” which literally means that his face is ghastly, shallow, gaunt, without life, and depicts a horrible death; so horrible that even the devil is capable of being repulsed by the horror. Wilfred Owen also uses rhythm and rhyme well to fulfil his intentions. The poem has a regular rhythmic pattern, which remains almost throughout (with a few minor exceptions), however it is used to portray a different situation throughout the three stages of the poem. In the first stage of the poem (the first verse), the regular rhythm imitates the wearisome routine and the monotony of war, with the fourth line, “And towards our distant rest began to trudge” an iambic pentameter. The second part of the poem starts abruptly, “Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!” The poem quickens slightly at this point, as it is the liveliest part of the poem and is about the rush to out on the gas masks. Owen uses punctuation for texture effectively in line 12 with the ellipses which tells us that the image trails off, and by the extension, gives a sense of the rhythm and the mood of the speaker at that point. The line is not a proclamation, but an eerie realisation. In the last part of the poem, Owen reflects on what they did with the body and uses vivid descriptions to portray the death of the man and the dead man. The last verse is gruesome and the rhythm slows down again as Owen realises how awful war is and reflects on what he has seen. I think that the poem is very effective. Owen’s aim as a poet was to convince people that although people will encourage you to fight for your country, in reality, fighting for your country is simply sentencing yourself to an unnecessary death. He explains in his poem that the title of the poem means " Sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country," and then Owen continues his poem by ending that the title is, in fact, a lie. Most will not have seen the war like Owen did, but through his vivid words and his gruesome portrayal, I think we all can know that we do not want to see war. This poem comes from a first hand source who had to endure the war. It is a soldier’s interpretation of a war he was a part of and the pain of this piece of writing is its truth. This graphic horrible scene created by the poem is really, which makes this poem more horrifying. The descriptive elements really illustrate the narrators feeling. It is said a picture paints a thousand words, but in this case with the language used it can be said a word can paint a thousand pictures. This choppy descriptive language is brutally honest and makes it easy to look into the mind of the author. The author has nothing good to say about war. He says that war is dehumanising, humiliating, and vicious and his poem successfully justifies his views.
