In this poem Wilfred Owen is describing what a soldier sees and has to live with during the war. In the First verse he describes Soldiers welfare, ‘Bent double, like old beggars under sacks’ Wilfred is describing the men’s backs, saying that they are unable to stand up properly as they are in so much pain. He also explains the soldier’s lungs ‘Knock-kneed, coughing like hags we cursed through the sludge’ this is saying that because of the poising Gas, smoke and stench from the dead bodies, and rodents there lungs have been weakened and were now coughing like an old woman. Owen especially mentions how tired the soldiers, ‘Men marched asleep’ ‘Drunk with fatigue’, fatigue means tiredness. One of the reasons due to the tiredness was of the bright flares at night, ‘Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs’. The flares would light up the dark sky with a very bright light so that the enemy could see where to shoot; the soldiers had to turn away as it was too bright for their eyes. ‘But limped on, blood-shod’ Wilfred is saying here that the soldiers were surrounded with blood and infections. Wilfred Owen and his fellow soldiers were also tired of weapons becoming less accurate. ‘Of tired, outstripped five-nines that dropped behind.’ This is saying that they are tired of there guns being weakened as time goes by, as when a shell is shot it spins to get the best aim but the more and more times the gun is used shell spins less and less meaning the accuracy is decreased.
Whilst the first verse is describing the Soldiers, the second verse is about gas attack he witnessed which involved watching his friend dying. ‘Gas! Gas! Quick boys!-An ecstasy of fumbling’. Wilfred is giving an example of what happened when a Gas attack did happen. ‘And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…’ Owen is watching a man dying from the poisonous lungs as the gas pierces his lungs, another way to describe it, is drowning in his own blood. Wilfred also describes how he is sees it for example ‘As under a green sea, I saw him drowning’ He describes it as a green sea because the masks had a green shade on the eye area therefore what ever the soldier saw was in the shade of green. He referees to the gas as the sea because of being similar to a soldier drowning in his own blood from the lungs being pierced by the gas.
The third verse is also about the Gas attack but is Owen being reminded of the horrible event in a dream. ‘In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning’, Wilfred is saying that every dream that he has it is of his friend dying; he explains the pain he feels as his friend begs him help but there is nothing he can do but watch him die because as soon as the gas gets into the lungs a slow death awaits you.
The final verse of the poem is about the Gas attack of his friend, but this time its after the Gas attack and what happens to his friend as well as what he truly thinks of the War. ‘Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;’ Here Owen is telling us what happened to his friend after his attack. They chucked him onto a wagon full of dead people whilst he was still alive as when someone breathed in the gas they would die no matter what therefore to save space they were taken away immediately as well as to remove them from the soldiers view as this could cause high emoticons of the other soldiers as well as in some cases madness. Wilfred referees to the war as cancer, ‘Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud’ Wilfred is saying here that the war is so obscene as cancer, cancer back then was uncured and like poison gas put people in pain for a long while until they died. He uses innocent tongues because gas would more than often be taken in by the mouth, poisoning the tongues of the victims by not just poisoning but also giving a foul taste in the men’s mouths. He calls the soldiers innocent because they do not deserve this illness given to them as they had not done anything wrong. At the end of the final verse gives a warning, ‘My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro Patria mori.’ Wilfred is saying here not to lie to the children or anyone that has not experienced the War that it is a good and sweet thing to die for ones country as everyone who has experienced this terror knows it is not true. ‘Dulce et decorum est Pro Patria mori’ means, it is good and sweet to die for ones country. Owen has used this in his poem to warn the people that War is not a good thing neither is dying for your country.
Wilfred Owens attitude to the War is very negative quiet like most soldiers. It could be said that this is because when he started to live in the trenches the food rations and living conditions were much worse than at the start because of the rationing. When he first signed up to join the army in 1915 he was very optimistic and cheerful of the prospect but soon after he arrived he changed his mind. This is probably to do with the living conditions and welfare, having to see so many dead bodies would have been a big shock to any soldier. Another reason he could be so hateful of the War is because of the Battle of the Somme, the way Haig had treated the troops by sending them ‘over the top’ to death over and over again may have given Wilfred the idea that army or Britain did not care much for the soldiers and that it did not matter if they died. I think the main reason Owen is so bitter about the War is because he saw the whole war and knew how many deaths and how repulsive the living conditions as well as feeling that the Army and Government did not care for the soldier’s lives.
