My essay is on the First World War one poem " Dulce et Decorum est. wrote by the British poet Wilfred Owen.

WAR POETRY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR! BY K.SLATTERY

DULCE ET DECORUM EST

My essay is on the First World War one poem “ Dulce et Decorum est. wrote by the British poet Wilfred Owen. Wilfred wrote this poem in 1917 when he was sent back from fighting in France to a hospital near Edinburgh. He was diagnosed as having the condition called Neurasthenia the medical name giving to shellshock. He was sent to Edinburgh’s Craiglockhart war hospital it was there that he met another poet called Siegfrid Sosson who encouraged Owen to write. They both wrote poems about the harshness of the war. Neither made it out to be glorious or fun. I think Wilfred Owen is a trustworthy poet who has a strong message to show the reader. His poems full rage at the cruelty and pity for the victims.

This poem particularly focus’s on the time Wilfred and fellow tired solider were marching sleepily back from fighting in the front line, When all of a sudden one of the gas shells that were dropping softly landed fight next to them. All of the men dashed to secure their helmets in time but one man was still yelling out and stumbling. Wilfred goes on to tell us how the solider dyed in what looked him drowning “As under a green sea.” Wilfred also explained how they throw his dead body behind the wagon. He told us this part to prove that if you go into the war you will not treated as a hero if you die. So young people did not get an unrealistic picture of war and sign up thinking it would be all glory and honour. Also he showed that perhaps he was scared that he might come to the same end and treated with the same lack of respect as the solider which died in the gas attack.

This is a preview of the whole essay

In the first verse Wilfred creates an excellent image of what the tired, marching solider are like. He does this by using effective techniques like similes, metaphors, onomatopoeia and good word choice to describe the men. He uses simile to make the thing he describing more easy to image. Wilfred wrote the simile “Bent double like old beggars under sacks,” it makes us think of the soldiers injured, unhealthy and finding it hard to walk. This simile also makes us think of the soldiers as tatty, ruff and with their uniform torn and untidy not neat and clean as soldiers are supposed to look like. Wilfred also writes that soldiers are walking “Knock-kneed, coughing like old hags.” Yet they were young but barely awake from the lack of sleep from working and the stress caused by the war changed these once young looking fit men into what looks like old women. There once smart uniforms resembling sacks, they cannot walk straight as their blood and mud caked feet try to move in the mud. The soldiers were all so described as “Drunk with fatigue,” which is a metaphor and suggest that the men were not really drunk but so tired and injured they were stuttering about like were. The poet all so uses the technique onomatopoeia with words like “Sludge” and “Trudge” so we can almost hear the noises the soldier’s boots made in the mud. In this first verse it gives the reader quite an overall impression of the contrast of propaganda not present a true picture. It also makes us think about how the army would advertise for new recruits showing young, fit and healthy men with nice neat uniforms. When this poem clearly state that a solders life was the complete opposite.

In the second verse Wilfred goes on to describe the gas attack and how one soldier that could not get his gas helmet on quick enough. The first four words “ Gas! Gas! Quick boys!” is wrote such a way that it made like the person saying it is in a hurry. The men have gone from walking very slowly and with difficulty to moving much quicker. Wilfred Owen has give this by using words like “esatasy of fumbling,” instead of “Knock kneed,” and “Bent double” like in the first verse when they were walking slow. This verse also has the technique similes wrote in to give a better picture of the man’s pain. Owen wrote that the man was “Floundering like a man in fire or lime,” which means he fell in pain like a man who caught fire and was trying to roll free from it. In the last line the gas is being compared with the sea because it looks like the soldier is drowning. This line give you the impression that he kicking and moving his hands as if he was trying to surface from the gas to get some breaths of air.

In the third short verse it is broken off from the second even though it is still about the soldier who could not fit on his gas mask. This verse is about the nightmares that Owen has after this event. Owen kept thinking about the soldier because of when he was dying “He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning,” and Wilfred couldn’t help him. This sentence is effective because Owen uses good word choice and makes this part in to a list. Owen also could not stop thinking about the soldier because he was a friend and that image of a friend dying would be hard for anyone to ever forget.

In the last verse Owen asks us to imagine following behind the wagon that they put the solder’s body onto. He uses the technique alliteration so that we can almost be able to picture the scene and hear for ourselves. He talks to the readers in this verse by using words such as “you too could pace” and he calls us “My friend.” Owen asks us to hear the “blood come gargling,” from the man corrupted lungs. He asks as to “Watch the white eyes writhing in his face,” the word writhing make me think the eyes are rolling in their sockets and in different directions. It is a very unpleasant image. Owen used a great simile to show how horrible the soldier death was he said it was “As obscene as cancer as bitter as the cud.” Which I think is a way to describe not only the man death but also the whole war in general. In the last four Owen writes “Dulce et Docorum est pro patria mori.” Which is Latin and in English means it is sweet and honourable to die for one country. Owen believes this to the old lie that soldiers tell to ardent children, which are looking for some desperate glory. I think Owen uses Latin to get a cross that it not just the person that think that or not even just one country but anyone who tell heroic war story with high zest.

In conclusion of this essay I would like to say this poem has changed my perspective of the war. I no longer think of the world war as big hard man slashing and bombing people with no shame or remorse for that man or his family. I now think of war as every day men who have been pressured by their country and scared to be looked on as a coward if they didn’t go. However they didn’t want to kill but only wanted the war to end so they can get back to their loved ones. Although in 1918 Owen rejoined his rejoined his regiment and in August went back to France and dyed on the 4TH of November. He will always be remember by any that read this poem as the poet who made real life for him into poetry and told the truth about the suffering and the poor conditions at the front line. He also let it be know that “Dulce et Decorum est pro patria mori” is a LIE!