‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ And ‘The Send Off Essay’

In 'Dulce Et Decorum Est' I think Wilfred Owen wanted people at home and in the government to realise what was happening in the trenches. I think wanted people to feel sympathy for the young men dying for their country because the government and their soldiers were telling them the old lie 'It Is Sweet And Noble To Die For Your Country'. If the soldiers wouldn't fight the generals would kill them. He succeeds in doing this by showing his feelings by saying, 'Lie A Devils Sick Of Sin'; this tells me that he is using alliteration and harsh sounds to help convey the bitter resentment Wilfred Owen feels. On the other hand ' The Send Off ' he conveys that the government are trying to hide the fact that the soldiers 'Send Off ' is hush-hush. This tells me that the government are afraid of what the public would say if they were sending young untrained adults to War. I think they also done this to make sure no one new everyone that went so when the War ended they wouldn't feel sad to find that that person did not return. I think this because towards the end of 'The Send Off ' there is a rather large sentence including quite a few commas, which slow down the rhythm, which creates a sad atmosphere.

Death seems to be mentioned a lot in Wilfred Owen's poems for example the title of 'Dulce Et Decorum Est' means It Is Sweet And Noble To Die for Your Country. Throughout the poem more pictures are painted of death and funerals for example, 'As under a green sea I saw him drowning.' 'He plunges at me guttering, choking, drowning'. From the next quotes we can see that Wilfred Owen must have suffered from nightmares about the war and the trenches. He says

'In all my dreams before my helpless sight', 'He plunges at me guttering, choking, drowning', 'If in some smothering dreams you too could pace behind the wagon that we flung him in'

Pictures of death are also painted in the poem 'The send-off ' and I think that Wilfred Owen is trying to put forward the idea that when you are 'Sent Off ' you never come back. 'A few, a few too few for drums and yells, may creep back silent to village wells'

The quote below shows us that Wilfred Owen saw 'The send-off ' as a funeral. The quote leads me to get the impression that death is mocking the flowers and spray and turning them into flowers and spray for funerals. 'Nor there if they yet mock what women meant, who gave them flowers'. This quote 'Shall they return to beating bells' is almost like asking a question. Will they return? I think this shows us that Wilfred Owens's view of war from personal experience tells us that he hated the war and saw it as a very bad thing. The quote below tells me that he saw the men as dead as soon as they got on the train,' Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray, as men's are dead '. This quote has an oxymoron in it Grimly gay, 'And lined the train with faces grimly gay'. By doing this Wilfred Owen tells me that the solders that are lining the train are happy but this is shadowed by the fact that they are going to war and may not becoming back this makes the title seem ironic 'The Send-off ' I feel that this implying that they may not come back and they have been sent off into the unknown. 'We never heard to which front these were sent'.

In 'Dulce Et Decorum Est' Owen tries to paint a picture of what life in the trenches was like he describes the men as 'Old beggars' and tells us that they were 'coughing like hags' he also uses the word trudge and this tells me that the men are slowly moving towards their end and are not physically or mentally fit but are slowly lifting one foot after the other and placing it down into the 'sludge'. They seem to have no energy left at all. He mentions that the men 'marched asleep' and this gives me an idea that they had not slept for few days. The men had quite clearly been injured or had lost their equipment he says, 'Many had lost their boots, but limped on blood-shod '. He also tells us that the men were 'Drunk with fatigue' and were deaf even, 'to the hoots, of gas shells dropping softly behind '.

Wilfred Owens experience of war seems to be portrayed in both 'Dulce Et Decorum Est' and 'The send off '. In Dulce et decorum Est Owen mentions 'we' and 'I' feel that this implies that he is writing from personal experience and not from something that he has seen while he was in the trenches. This is both his view and the view of his men as he says 'we'. 'Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through the sludge'.

Both these poems leave me with a miserable thought. In 'The Send Off ' Wilfred Owen describes the solders coming home to a village they do not know and in 'Dulce Et Decorum Est' he says that Dulce Et Decorum Est is a lie and that we shouldn't tell our children that its Sweet and Noble To Die For Your Country. I like the way the last line is short in both poems it gives the poem more of an impact.

I think that Wilfred Owen wrote these two excellent poems because he was trying to bring the horrors of war to the reader. In 'Dulce Et Decorum Est' he asks the reader if they could follow the wagon with the injured solider in and in the send off he relates the solders return to the village and asks how many are going to come home.

Dalver Birak

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