On the other hand, “Dulce et Decorum Est” is more of an attack on the people at home, sending their sons, fathers, brothers and uncles out to sign up for the armed forces rather than the generals being criticised for telling soldiers to walk right into machine gun fire as in “Anthem for Doomed Youth”.
‘My friend you would not tell with such high zest’
‘The old Lie: Dulce et decorum Est
Pro patria mori’
These lines clearly show that Owen is placing some of the blame on those at home for forcing men to go out and fight. In this poem Owen first sets the scene by describing the soldiers, tired after an attack on the enemy lines. Then the men are struck by a gas attack and one of them cannot find his mask. The poem then goes on to describe how his companions watched him writhe around in agony. At the end Owen is begging the reader not to tell men it is sweet and fitting to die for your country but conversely their lives will be lost for nothing. As in “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, Owen’s role is that of a bystander but “Dulce et Decorum Est” is written in the first person perspective rather that the second.
The third poem, “Disabled”, is more about describing what the effect of the war can be on a single person rather than on a larger scale. It flicks between what the young man’s life used to be like and now what he has been reduced to. Again, Owen is an onlooker, describing the crippled mans thoughts and feelings. It can be seen that this poem was supposed to show Britain the effect that the war could have on just one person, and Owen obviously thought it important as he planned to publish a collection of his poems called ‘Disabled and Other Poems’. It really evokes the pity of the War by showing the utter helplessness of the man in the wheelchair.
In “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, the opening line is extremely shocking and slightly hyperbolic. It says ‘What passing bells for these who die as cattle’. Not only does the word ‘these’ make the soldiers seem distant and depersonalised, but the fact that they die as cattle totally juxtaposes the common belief that men were dying and doing huge amounts of fighting to save their homeland. However, the fact that they died as cattle is slightly exaggerated as they obviously had some effect on the outcome of the First World War. Wilfred Owen uses an oxymoron in the first stanza, of the imagery of war and that of a funeral at a church. The most effective of these opposites is ‘Only the stuttering rifles rapid rattle can patter out their hasty orisons’. Here the rat-tat-tat-tat sound produced by machine guns, and also by the words used in this line, is personified into the sad prayers that are sung for the dead at a burial. Whilst war is a despicable and frowned upon event, a funeral is generally very solemn and serious occasion so that when the two are combined the result is a very striking piece of writing. In the second quatrain, the war imagery is not used. Instead, the funeral metaphors and similes are used to describe how the war dead that will not be buried are buried in the hearts of their loved ones.
‘The pallor of girls brows shall be their pall’
This quotation is showing that although the dead shall not be buried formally, the paleness of girl’s brows will be the cloth on their coffin. The long ‘a’ sound in ‘pall’ also slows down and saddens the reader. The line shows that the generals may be letting their men get mown down by the enemy, proving the pity of the war, but they will always be remembered their relatives.
Like the previous poem, “Dulce et Decorum Est” also has a highly shocking first line:
‘Bent double, like old beggars under sacks’
It is the exact opposite of the general public’s belief that the soldiers stood tall, doing their country proud. Also the ‘b’ and ‘d’ sounds are soft and could be showing the slow panting of the soldiers as they trudged through the thick mud. There are also strong lines used in the rest of the poem.
‘And watch the eyes writhing in his face,
His face hanging, like a devil’s sick of sin’
Owen uses extremely strong and slightly hyperbolical imagery to really get across how pitiful the war really was. The ‘w’ sounds in the first line of this quotation are quite similar to the screaming sounds that the dying soldier might be producing as the gas eats away at his body, whilst the ‘s’ sounds in the second line of this extract could be referring to the hissing of the gas shells. Another effect of these particular consonants is to show the bitterness that Owen feels because of the shame of the War and how completely pointless it is.
In this poem Wilfred Owen is quite close to the reader unlike in “Anthem for Doomed Youth”. He uses colloquial phrases such as ‘trudge’ and ‘sludge’ and it is written in the first person, which shows that he was there, and he knew exactly what it was like.
“Disabled” does not use quite as many literary devices as the other two poems. One of the main ones used in this particular poem is the use of leitmotif. When the crippled man is reminiscing about the days before he lost his legs, he uses plenty of bright colours. However, when Owen juxtaposes this with what the ex-soldier’s life is like now, he uses dull, drab colours, such as greys and black. In one line he says ‘leap of purple spurted from his thigh’ which has the effect on the reader of thinking that as he lost his legs, he was drained of all colour and is reduced to grey.
This line could also be allegorically describing ejaculation but with blood rather than semen. Ironically, this event would normally be closer linked to the creation of life rather than the almost entire removal of it. The fact that it was his admirers that encouraged him to join who said ‘he’d look a god in kilts’ is also ironic in that no woman will come anywhere near him except to put him to bed.
The losing of his legs is described as ‘he threw away his knees’ meaning that his loss was pointless and unnecessary as though his limbs are rubbish and of no value. It is also said in such a way that it was not an unusual occurrence in the army showing the disgrace of the war.
There is a caesural pause between the fourth and fifth stanzas, highlighting the huge difference between the lavish leaving celebration and the much more sombre homecoming. All these points, especially the one about the ladies encouraging him to recruit to the army, draw attention to the pity of the war.
“Anthem for Doomed Youth” is almost exactly a perfect sonnet with nearly a constant iambic pentometre and a volte between the first and second stanza. This changes the focus of the poem from that of bitterness and anger to one of remembrance of the dead.
“Dulce et Decorum Est” also uses the iambic pentometre, but is not a sonnet. The rhyme scheme changes at the end and the poem is much to long. It ends with ‘Pro patria mori’ and the rhyme scheme does not fit suggesting that the phrase is incorrect. Owen also tries to us the word ‘you’ to try and get the reader’s attention and to really concentrate on the poem.
“Disabled” is much more different to either of the previous two poems. It is written as a stream of consciousness, with the thoughts and feeling of the man in the wheelchair. A perfect iambic pentometre is used when the character is happy, thinking of the perfection of his life before the First World War but when he thinks of present life it changes. The metre becomes random, almost like speech, showing that his current life is incomplete or wrong. This also happens with the rhyme scheme, it changes when he thinks about his life without his legs.
“Anthem for Doomed Youth” starts angry and bitter which progresses to sarcasm at the end of the stanza. ‘No mockeries for them, now’ is trying to make the reader feel that it would be insulting for the government to bury the soldiers properly because they did not care about them when they were alive so why should they when they are dead? This example clearly points out the pity of the war. However, later in the poem he speaks of reminiscence of the dead. This shows that although the men died, they may have had some effect on the ending of World War One, making the reader sad and depressed.
Bitterness is the main feeling in “Dulce et Decorum Est”. The sharp ‘d’, ‘b’ and ‘t’ sounds help evoke this feeling. This poem’s aim was to help stop the war, and the bitterness felt by the reader certainly makes he / she want this to happen. Towards the end, in the final stanza, Owen is pleading with the reader to help bring an end to this terrible conflict by trying to get him / her to empathise with the pain that the gassed soldier has felt. The bitterness returns in the concluding three lines as the same sharp sound return. The final lines say ‘Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’ and the bitter consonants make it sound as though the writer is struggling to say this as he finds utterly false.
“Disabled” is not quite so bitter, but is an honest look at the main character and is much sadder than “Anthem for Doomed Youth” or “Dulce et Decorum Est”. It is much more emotional and he speaks how of ‘he will never feel again how slim girls waists are’. The effect that this has on the reader is that of empathy and feeling sorry for the man who has lost his limbs. This is the overriding emotion in “Disabled” and shows the pity of the war by showing the damage it can do to just a single person.
In the preface for Owen’s collection of poems, he writes clearly what his aim was: to show the pity of the war. In the above study of the three poems, “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, “Dulce et Decorum Est” and “Disabled”, it can be said that the difference of authorial stances, styles, poetical forms and the creation of emotions, from great sadness to immense resentment and fury, always add up to generate and prove the pity of the First World War.