Dulce Et Decorum Est. Wilfred Owen is addressing the poem to people back in England where he was born and to show the people who think war is great that it is dreadful and terrifying.

Thursday 15th November 2007 Joe Hemingway 9W

‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’

In 1914 the First World War began. Many countries were involved in the war like England, France, Germany and many more. The poem I am going to talk about was written by a poet called Wilfred Owen. Wilfred Owen was born on the 18th march 1893 in oswestry, Shropshire, son of Thomas and Susan Owen. After the death of his grandfather in 1897 the family moved to Birkenhead (Merseyside). Owens earliest experiments in poetry began at the age of 17.Owen became increasingly aware of the magnitude of the war and returned to England in September 1915 to enlist in the Artists’ Rifles a month later. In 1917 in January Wilfred Owen was sent to France and saw his first action in which he and his men were forced to hold a flooded dug-out in no-mans land for fifty hours whilst under heavy bombardment.Unfotunately Wilfred Owen died a week before the great war ended. The news of his death reached his parents on November 11th 1918, the day of the armistice. The poem I am talking about is called ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ which means it is sweet and proper. The poem is about what goes on during the war and how terrible and scary war is. The poem mainly talks about soldiers on the front-line and soldiers in the trenches. The poem mentions all the daily struggles soldiers went through and what war is truly like.

The poem is called ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ because it means ‘it is sweet and proper’ and Wilfred Owen is telling the old lie. By ‘it is sweet and proper’ Wilfred Owen is saying that it is right to die for your country but Wilfred Owen is being sarcastic. The last sentence of the poem ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori’ means it is sweet and proper to die for your country which is the old lie. They say this because war is not all it’s cracked up to be as you put your life at risk.

Wilfred Owen ...

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Wilfred Owen is addressing the poem to people back in England where he was born and to show the people who think war is great that it is dreadful and terrifying. He was also telling people who have never experienced war and telling them how people died and about every day struggles in the trenches and fighting on the front line. Wilfred Owen wrote the poem towards the end of world war one. He wanted people to understand it was not so great fighting for your country because you’re putting your life on the line and thousands of soldiers die every day.

In the first stanza you imagine that the soldiers will have nice clean uniform and good posture but that is not so. Soldiers in the poem are described as ‘beggars under sacks’ which is saying they are covered in mud. Also it says they were ‘coughing like hags’ which is saying the soldiers are struggling living with the terrible conditions and that they are getting to the soldiers. He also uses that ‘all went lame and blind’ meaning that the soldiers were bent over as their backs were killing and they were described as blind as they were so tired they could hardly keep their eyes open. They are also described as ‘deaf as hoots’ because of the bombs and guns firing they can hardly hear.

They are in a terrible situation as they have been fighting and now are heading for their distant rest and are going for a sleep as they are so tired. The soldiers are in a bad way as they are slouching and they are described as ‘All went lame and blind’. The expectation of going home for Christmas is long gone. They had lost their boots and many have really bad trench foot and may never be able to walk ever again. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers went to rest as they were in such a terrible way.

Wilfred Owen used the word ‘cursed’ because many soldiers are muttering under their breath and are really fed up and tired. He also used the word ‘sludge’ because it wasn’t just mud it was deep and squishy and was really hard to move through these terrible conditions as it was like a boggy marsh. The choice of words he used was very effective and original. The words the poet has used really opens up the readers’ minds and makes you imagine what is going on.

At the beginning of the second stanza the short sentence gets louder and louder. The poet wrote ‘Gas! Gas! Quick Boys’. These words are trying to express the emotions of the soldiers and show how much of a hurry they are in. the sentences also show a sense of urgency and worry. The poet is showing how much of a hurry there was to get their gas masks on so they don’t die from the mustard gas.

The word ‘but’ means in the poem that something bad is going to happen. ‘But’ should be read in a disappointed or alarmed way: something bad is going to happen. It is a warning. It warns the reader that everything hasn’t happened just yet.

By the words ‘ecstasy of fumbling’ means that the soldiers are shaking with fear. By the word ‘panes’ it means the glass in the gas masks are like a window pane and Wilfred Owen says that the soldiers are looking through misty panes by that he means the glass in the gas masks has all steamed up and is really hard to see out of. It is also hard to see out of the panes as there is loads of mustard gas passing through the trenches.

Soldiers who were gassed by mustard gas all struggled to put their gas masks on as they were so heavy. Everyone who inhaled mustard gas either died instantly or died slowly and painfully. Sometimes it could take up to till they die. The helmets used were really heavy and hard to fit on. Many people died from mustard gas because some people couldn’t fit their gas masks on or didn’t have a gas mask near enough to them. In the poem it says ‘someone still yelling and stumbling’ which means Wilfred Owen saw a soldier who didn’t get his gas mask in time or didn’t have one and fell to the ground. The poem describes the gassing of the man is as if he is trying to grab some one else’s gas mask just in desperation. The poem says the word ‘choking’ as if he was choking on some food or something else but he was actually choking on the mustard gas.

I think that Wilfred Owen is distraught about one of his fellow soldiers dying.

‘Behind the wagon that we flung him in’

In this part of the poem above it is describing how he died and what happened to the soldier once he was dead. When they died they threw them on a wagon.

Finally, my view of the poem is that it is very realistic and is very graphical in what happens to the soldiers. It makes me feel sorry for the soldiers and what they had to go through during the First World War. It makes me wonder what if it was me who was in those conditions, me who saw my best friends die in struggle.

Joe Hemingway 9W

Peer Reviews

Here's what a star student thought of this essay

sydneyhopcroft

17th of Mar 2012

Quality of writing

And on the language, it is not appropriate to see colloquial language in analytical answers where Standard English is required. "war is not all it's cracked up to be (sic)" is unacceptable as it is not written with the correct standards expected of GCSE English candidates. In the future, make sure all analytical responses avoid the use of colloquial language.

Level of analysis

The Level of Analysis is evidently quite poor, with the candidate dissipating much of their energies on commenting or simplifying what Owen says in his poem, with only a very brief and shallow attempt at the analysis of it. There is almost no appreciation of the context either - at this time, Owen had been admitted to Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh and had time to reflect on the travesties of war; the pity of war. This must be recognised as Owen is not sitting and mourning the imminent death of soldiers as he can be said to be doing in 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' for example, where he had only very recently joined the front-line - in 'Dulce et Decorum est', he vividly describes with extremely powerful language the torture of one man intoxicated by mustard gas. There should be a greater focus on the language here, as it is a very important driving factor behind the effect of this poem.

Response to question

This is an answer in receipt of a question that asks candidate to consider the effect of Wilfred Owen's 'Dulce et Decorum est'. The answer focuses on very few of the necessary analytical points of the poem, and instead of opting to talk at length about what actually counts, there is a simple translation of what Owen is saying, with what little effective analysis there is used on ridiculously insignificant words like "but" - Wilfred Owen, having been to the front-line of the most gruelling war in history can say a lot better and give greater effect than with just "but". It is important the candidate comments at length on the words and phrases that count - their emotive resonance and what they tell us about Owen's attitude to war at the time (regardless of the over-arching anti-War value, Owen's specific attitude changed from poem to poem e.g. resignation in 'Strange Meeting'; nightmarish insanity in 'Mental Cases'; and antiestablishmentarian satire in 'Dulce et Decorum est').

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