In the next line the phrase “fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,” is used to reinforce the imagery of it being crucial for the soldiers to get their helmets on, adding to the urgency of the scene showing that the situation is life-threatening and dangerous.
To describe the gas attack Owen uses imagery and language to appeal to the readers senses, showing them the reality of war,
“As under a green sea. I saw him drowning.”
The “green sea” is used to show that the gas is so thick that it makes the man look as if he was drowning in thick, deep water. The word “drowning” is used to show that the effects of the gas attack are the same as drowning which helps to add a surreal feel to the poem.
The third stanza is only two lines long and moves from the present into the poets dreams which has the effect of slowing the pace of the poem. The words “helpless sight” imply that the poet wants to help the soldier but it is impossible for him to do so. This is confirmed in the next line
“He plunges at me guttering, choking, drowning”
showing the soldier making one last plea for help but the poet still being powerless to do anything about it.
In the last stanza Owen goes back to the idea of drowning “smothering dreams” this personification makes it seem that Owen is drowning in his dreams of this event, showing how horrific the war was to the soldiers and re-affirms Owens’s anti war stance. The pace of the poem starts to quicken again by Owen using less syllables in each line. He also appeals to the reader by using the word “you” drawing the reader into the poem, letting them experience what it was like for him.
The word “flung” in the next line shows the casualness of the soldiers as they leave the man to die knowing that they cannot do any thing about the situation and also shows that they do not have time to do anything else because of the urgency of war and the need to return to the battlefield.
In the next few lines Owen uses images of torture to describe the physical appearance of the soldier. He uses alliteration “Watch the white eyes writhing in his face,” to convey horror using the images of torture. In the next line the phrase “like a devil’s sick of sin” shows that there was so much death around them, that even the devil would be sick of it, bringing the dire situation closer to the reader. He again appeals to the readers senses in the line “If you could hear” and then goes on to describe the situation using onomatopoeia to appeal to the readers sense of hearing with words such as “gargling,” and “froth-corrupted.”
The line “My friend, you would not tell with such high zest,” refers to Jessie Owen a female poet who wrote popular patriotic verse during the First World War. Owen’s tone is mocking, in contrast to the negative tone of the rest of the poem, asking why she thinks war is glorious when she has not experienced it as she has no idea what it was like, the intention of his poems being to shock enthusiastic people such as Pope and show people the real horrors of war. He also does this by using the word “children” in the next line which is intended to make people feel guilty about glamorising war.
The last line refers back to the title
“Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.”
Owen say that this is a lie and that it is a crime for people to say this as they have never experienced war. He seems to be confused as to why people would want to lie about it.
The second poem Anthem for Doomed Youth is also about war and the effect that it has on people who suffer it. The poem was also influenced by Owen’s experiences at war, it was written after he had been sent to Craiglockhart with shellshock and had met Siegfried Sassoon another poet who wrote about the horrors of war and influenced Owen’s work.
The poem is in sonnet form with fifteen lines, ten syllables and an alternate rhyme scheme in the first stanza. The poem is a contrast to most sonnets which are about love but the sonnet form makes it flow slowly like a funeral march.
The title uses the word “anthem” which seems to contradict the message of Owen’s poem, as an anthem is usually used at a joyous event or a celebration it is used in this poem as irony. The word “doomed” ,however, shows that Owen feels that the men going off to war never stood a chance of survival, and the word “youth” is used to convey the pointlessness of war as many young soldiers were killed in it.
The first line “What passing bells for those who die as cattle?” is used as a rhetorical question to the readers of the poem which makes them feel more involved and makes them think about what the poem is saying. It is also used as a simile to create the image of a slaughterhouse with the men as “cattle” reducing their individuality and making it seem as if they are being herded to their inevitable deaths showing the sacrifice made by the soldiers in choosing to go to war.
The use of personification in the line “monstrous anger of the guns” to show the volume of the guns making them sound like evil monsters who take away life and shows that even when someone dies the war still continues around them. In the next line Owen uses assonance and alliteration
“stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle can patter out their hasty orisons”
to bring the sound of the battle into the readers minds. This line also says instead of receiving prayers, the dead soldiers received the firing of guns.
This image is repeated in the line “Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs” which shows that the only sounds that can be heard are those of the guns and the dropping shells, emphasising the appalling way in which the soldiers were treated after their deaths and contrasting to the choirs normally heard at funerals.
In the first stanza Owen uses many different sounds as a background to battle “wailing,” “choirs,” and “bugles” to make the reader imagine what the war was like to the soldiers by using onomatopoeia to appeal to their senses. The “sad shires” is used to remind the reader of the country that the soldiers have left and the sorrow of the people who were left behind.
In the second stanza the first line “What candles may be held to speed them all?” is a rhetorical question used to show the foolishness of war creating the image of the soldiers moving on to their next life which could highlight Owen’s religious views, the candles of the line being used to remember them and bring them back.
The line “Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes”
is used to answer the question implying that because there are no candles that would normally be lit at a funeral to symbolise life, this is shown in the eyes and the tears of the other soldiers. The use of the word “boys” is deliberately used by Owen to horrify the reader as in their eyes boys should not be at war.
“Their flowers the tenderness of silent minds,” are used to convey the flowers normally found at ceremonies, to the feelings of the people who were left behind and also convey what the women are trying to say. The last line “At each slow dusk the drawing down of blinds,” is used to show that when someone died people would shut their blinds as a mark of respect, Owen is comparing this to the dusk coming like a blind being drawn down ending the funeral. The repeated‘d’ sound causes the poem to slow down to a deliberate stop.
In both of his poems Owen contradicts the title by what he writes in the poem. The content of the first poem contradicts the title saying that war is sweet and fitting and the use of the word anthem in Anthem for Doomed Youth contradicts the message that Owen is trying to put across. Both of the poems have an alternate rhyming scheme this can be seen in Dulce et decorum est “sacks” and “backs” and in Anthem for Doomed Youth “cattle” and “rattle.”
However in Dulce et decorum est although there is a rhyme scheme there is no pattern which would make it run smoothly whereas the sonnet form in Anthem for Doomed Youth makes it run slowly like a funeral march. In both poems Owen appeals to the reader’s sense of hearing “gargling” “wailing” and by doing this is able to show how horrific war was to him. Also in both poems Owen shows the reader’s his views by conveying the helplessness of the people portrayed, both the soldier drowning in the gas attack in Dulce et decorum est and the “doomed youth” in the title of the second poem, knowing what was going to happen but not being able to do any thing about it.
In conclusion I feel that both of these poems are effective in the way that they convey the realism of war in contrast to the glamorised version portrayed by some poets at that time and although they are both by the same poet they show the different emotions shown by people during the First World War challenging the ideas of the other poets of that time who had not experienced it.
