The simile ‘coughing like hags’, is used, because the men who went into battle were relatively young, yet after they fought a battle they looked old and ugly, hence hag. These men were forced to age before their time, due to their weariness and their terrible living conditions. ‘Like old beggars under sacks’ also tells me that their once clean and smart uniforms were now muddy, tattered and torn, so much so, that the poet thinks of them as nothing more than ‘sacks’.
The poet uses words like ‘knock-kneed’, ‘coughing’ and ‘limped’ to give you a visual image of how the men were walking. The image that I had was of an old person, who was having trouble even taking a step, not that of a proud, strong soldier during the war.
In the second stanza, the poet generates a sense of panic. He does this by changing the tone by using upbeat words and also by using short phrases. The use of upper case lettering on the repeated word “GAS” emphasises this tonal change to emphasise panic. The men discover the gas and then it is almost as if the realisation only hits them a second later. They then shout the word a second time as they have woken from their “drunken fatigue” to warn each other and then they have to put their gas masks on immediately. The men fumble as the helmets are clumsy and heavy and the men are in a panic. One unfortunate soldier did not manage to put his helmet on in time and so the gas begins to kill him. Owen describes the horror as he watches the desperation of the dying man. The following simile creates an image of the man struggling to move or to stay upright and compares the gas to fire or lime,
“And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime….”
Owen is disturbed as he sees him drowning in the deadly gas. He then takes the metaphor one step further and describes the soldier as drowning “under a green sea” due to the green colouring of the gas. The victim is both metaphorically and physically drowning in gas. ‘Drowning’ can be metaphorical in this case as the man is so helpless he seems to be drowning in the sea but in fact he is literally drowning in his own blood as the gas attacks and consumes his lungs. This vividly depicts the ugliness and horrors of the war.
The third stanza of ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ is of the haunting effect that watching his comrade die has on the poet. ‘He plunges at me’ has a tone of accusation as he guiltily sees an image of the soldier ‘plunging’ at him, accusing Owen of not helping him cope with his clumsiness during the gas attack. Owen feels guilty about being unable to help and he has nightmares about the scene continuously. The reader’s attention does not wander throughout the poem because of Owen’s consistent imagery. By the end of the poem, the reader can fully appreciate the irony between the truth of what happens in the trenches and the Lie being told at home. It is this attention to form and imagery that makes the poem effective.
As Owen witnesses the number of innocent men dying out there, he realizes how the cruelty of the war and suffering can distort the face of the victim:
“And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;”
The word ‘writhing’ gives a vivid image of pain and discomfort as we get the horrible image of the man’s face twisting violently and the ‘white eyes’ also create an image of horror and violence. Earlier in this stanza, the words ‘smothering’ and ‘flung’ also add to the image of violence and hostility. ‘Flung’ also suggests a lack of care as well as aggression in the action.
Wilfred Owen's extremely powerful poem, 'Dulce Et Decorum Est' thoroughly criticises the ideology of war being 'a sweet and glorious way to die, fighting for one's country'. The combination of vivid imagery and poetic devices work to evoke a horrible anti-war feeling in the reader and encourage them to act and cease the on-going violence in the world. With powerful imagery and simple language, Owen effectively explores the theme of war.