Georgia Clinton                                                                                                   10mcr

How does Wilfred Owen, use his poetry to communicate the horrors of the First World War.

In January 1917 Wilfred Owen arrived on the western front at the northern end of the Somme sector where he spent four months in appalling conditions. Owen didn’t approve of the lies being told about the war so he wrote poems to tell the truth about the horrors and cruelty of the war. I looked at a number of Wilfred Owens poems and I have chosen four to write about. ‘Dulce et decorum est’, ‘the sentry’, ‘Exposure’, and ‘disabled’.

In these poems Owen uses a lot of personal pronouns to communicate to the horrors of the war. He shows this by explaining the suffering he went through. In the opening paragraph of the sentry, Owen explicitly describes the situation as being ‘hell’ we know Owen was experiencing this horrific event because he uses personal pronouns such as, “we” and “our”. Having studied a variety of Owens poems it is clear he had a strong personal view of the war.    

The four poems that I am focusing on two highlight actual events that Owen has experienced. Both poems deal with specific incidents that have had a lasting impression on Owen. The poem Dulce et decorum est is about death the first section of the poem takes the reader on a march with the soldiers and shows vividly the unglamorous aspects of the war. “Men marched asleep” tired suffering men who are no longer pain, who are so tired the no longer feel fatigue.

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“Gas Gas! Quick boys” Owen repeats the word gas as the men are too tired and couldn’t care less. There follows a grotesque and horrific scene as the tired men grope for there gas masks and one “boy” is too slow.  His death is seen in a slow motion nightmare through the goggles of Owens gas mask and the green mist of chlorine fumes. “Dim through the misty panes and thick green sea I saw him drowning”.

Owen in haunted in his dreams by the memories of this man “choking” and “drowning while he watches helplessly. This ...

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