The fourth and last poem I will be studying is Mental Cases. This poem tells the story of soldiers that are suffering mental breakdowns during the war and it puts across the horrors of trench warfare.
Dulce et Decorum Est makes you mourn for the soldiers. This poem is probably the most, strongest poem of Owens. It is a poem that speaks directly to humanity and and puts the anguish of the individual soldiers across to the reader.
As I have mentioned Dulce et Decorum Est is about a gas attack during the war and it describes the poor soldiers death. The soldiers are “bent double, like old beggars under sacks”, coughing like hags”, “drunk with fatigue”, describing the exhaustion of the soldiers. I find this very effective because Owen uses similes, which help us picture the scene in our minds, and we can imagine the conditions of the atmosphere better. It is most certainly a negative view on war. The first stanza is very slow and there are lots of commas and semi colons which break down the pace and there are short, sharp sentences to make it easier in the eye and easier to understand but it is also a way to increase the tension and suspense leading to the horror of the gas. I find this very effective because it leaves the reader wondering about what will happen to the soldier.
Stanza 2 opens with “Gas! Gas!” using direct speech to give the poem greater immediacy and urgency. The pace then increases with “an ecstasy of fumbling”. The direct speech used gives the reader a sense of realisation and makes them feel that they are there. Owen uses this very well to create a very real and effective environment. The pace of the poem quickens in the 2nd stanza. The soldiers are awoken by a gas attack. This effectively shatters the mood that Owen has told of us in the opening stanza. The soldiers are now awoken by the fact that their lives are in extreme danger and they now have to be fully aware of all their surroundings.
Owen says, " Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, as under a green sea, I saw him drowning"
Colours create the illusion that the man is drowning very imaginatively. He imagines the “misty panes” which mean that he has some sort of visual befuddlement or that there is no way out and then there is “thick green light” which could either describe the colour of the gas or what the atmosphere was like. The light Owen describes is the same as “under a green sea”. Owen refers to the colour green again but he also uses a Simile, which is another good way of describing the atmosphere and the reader gets to feel the conditions and fell what it was like.
Stanza 3 is set apart from the rest of the poem, which gives it a greater impact and a greater immediacy. It draws the reader’s attention and stands out from the rest of the page. It is where Owen begins to have flashbacks of the man drowning, it shows that it has left a deep impression on him. The man that was “drowning in the gas was “helpless” and Owen feels he is guilty of his death because he could not help him.
In stanza 4 the pace quickens even more and it suddenly switches and starts to address the reader and it almost leaves behind the image of the man dying. Owen feels that the death was terrible and pointless and it makes him angry that he couldn’t do more to help. Also in stanza 4, Owen tries to use gore and blood to get the readers attention but also to create a tense atmosphere. He describes the “froth corrupted lungs”. The death wasn’t glorious and Owen only seems to focus on the grisly aspects of the war and the disgust and the anger and the contempt.
Wilfred Owen begins to attack the phrase “dulce et decorum est” (it is sweet and noble to die for your country). He tries to persuade the reader into thinking that the saying was wrong. Owen ends the poem with Dulce et Decorum Est and calls it “the old lie”, instead of sating that he disagrees with war. He almost avoids the point that war is wrong. This poem is a negative view of war.
After reading the poem a number of times I have come to a conclusion that Owen named the poem this because of the strong statement that he makes in the poem. In a way I get the feeling that Owen was mocking the saying but I don’t think he was mocking the army as a whole just that single principal.
All the things that they are carrying weigh down the soldiers, perhaps they are even weighed down by the expectation of their country.
Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patri Moria translated in to English means It Is Sweet And Honourable To Die For Ones Country. If someone is reading the poem for the first time and learns of the English meaning of the title before reading the poem they may feel it is a poem that represents the army in a good way. How this assumption is further from the truth.
The Mental Cases is a sombre and in some places terrifying poem. It creates an unforgettable picture of those soldiers who have suffered mental breakdown as a result of the horrors of trench warfare. The description of the Mental Cases is using imager to make the men seem like the living dead. The language is rarefied and educated and Owen seems not to use army language like the other stories like the inspection. This is because it is more personal to him than the others. The bodies are “reaching out for those who smote them” making the soldiers seem savage. The soldiers are “baring teeth that leer like skulls teeth wicked” making them seem like the damned from Hell. Also Owen includes a number of question marks at the end of some of the lines. He is posing the rhetorical question to the reader and then he answers it within the next few lines. I think this is effective as it makes the reader think, “Who are these hellish?” The soldiers are unaware of their surroundings and are suffering from shell shock, Owen thinks he had died in his sleep and has gone to Hell because of the ferocity of the environment. Owen says “they pick meaninglessly at each other”- but Owen does see a meaning. The men’s appearances are worsened in stanza 2 when Owen delves deeper into the appearances of the soldiers. “Memory fingers in their hair of murders”, “wading slough’s of flesh these helpless wander”, “treading blood from lungs that have loved laughter. I find that Owens comment about the wading flesh is significant. It sets the tone for what happens and the picture created in the reader’s brain is gruesome. The amount of blood is also emphasized. “the sunlight seems a bloods smear; night comes blood black; dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh. Owen attacks the people that have sent him to war, “pawing” at them with endless hand movements.