Dulce Et Decorum Est

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The poem “Dulce Et Decorum Est” written by Wilfred Owen takes place during World War I in the midst of an attack. The tone throughout the poem is dreary and dark with no glimpse of hope. The title “Dulce Et Decorum Est” which means “how sweet and fitting it is” is ironic because the war described by Owen isn’t sweet at all. Owen uses images, metaphors, and similes to depict the tragedies of war and to knock down the glamorous notion that people have of war.


The poem “Dulce Et Decorum Est” uses strong images to convey the message that war is not all that it is cracked up to be. Throughout the poem, Owen gives us horrifying pictures of war. In the second stanza “Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots but limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots of gas shells dropping softly behind.” This stanza gives us an image of the horrid conditions that the soldiers had to endure. All the soldiers were limp, lame, blind, and deaf, and these are horrible conditions to be in. The reader knows that Owens is not only literally describing the conditions the soldiers face, but understand, that these conditions are also the state of mind the soldiers are in. You can see this when Owens describes the soldiers as being blood-shod. This word shod, normally is used to describe a shoeing of a horse or another beast of burden, but here it is used to describe the bloodied feet of the soldiers who lost their boots. This gives us an image of the pain the soldiers had to endure.


Next Owen shows us the distress the men go through to fight for their lives “An ecstasy of fumbling, fitting the clumsy helmets just in time…” it’s an insight into how devastating war can be. These men have been conditioned to yell “Gas! Gas!” and everyone runs for their gas masks. The reader questions what type of life this is running for your gas mask knowing the consequences of not reaching your mask in time. Next Owen describes the image of the soldier that did not reach for his mask in time. He describes the agony that the soldier goes through in this verse “And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, his hanging face, like a devil sick of sin; if you could hear at every jolt, the blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, bitter as the cud…” This gruesome portrayal of a man dying shows how merciless war is. The soldier “jolts” from breathing in the toxic fumes of the gas, his lungs literally are froth-filled because the lethal chemicals in the gas destroy the lungs the instant you breathe the gas in. “Bitter cud” comes from his mouth. Cud is a word used to describe how food and bile is regurgitated by an animal from its first stomach for the food to be chewed again. As this man was dying and blood begins to froth from his mouth it is described as cud, comparing the process of his death to that of basic animal functions. This shows us how inhumane war is and how the soldiers were in a sense treated like animals.


Owen use of metaphors and similes is a critical instrument used to express the message that life on the battlefield is not glorious. In the first lines of the poem “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,…” Owen uses the simile “coughing like hags” to describes the conditions that the soldiers were living in. Their conditions were so intolerable that they were brought down to the level of beggars. A further description of the state the soldiers were put through is in this metaphor in the second stanza, “Drunk with fatigue.” The soldiers were not actually drunk but they were so tired that they were acting drunk in a way a person might when they are sleep deprived.


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Another use of simile is “Bitter as cud obscene as cancer.” This line refers to the description of the soldier that was dying of gas poisoning. It’s interesting that Owen decides to compare this scene to cancer, because it also compares to the image that Owen has of the soldier dying of gas poisoning. This image of the soldier dying invades the writer’s mind like how cancer invades the body and will permanently be ingrained in his mind just like cancer will always leave its mark on the body. Owen is obviously expressing his contempt for the war and the situation that he is being put in, and apparently thinks about this situation a lot.


An additional use of metaphor is in this line, “Of vile, incurable sores in innocent tongues…” this shows us what memories the troops will have embedded in their mind, memories which are mostly unpleasant. Owen’s reference to “sores on innocent tongues” describes how painful the memories of this episode will be for the soldiers who experienced this. It’s fascinating that Owen uses “innocent” because in the following lines he also uses words such as “high zest” and says, “to children ardent for some desperate glory” though we understand from Owen’s perspective that war is not magnificent there will still be young boys who believe in the lie, although they will think differently once they experience combat.


The ending is something to be dissected in of itself. “Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori” means “how sweet and fitting it is to die for one’s country.” The reader when reading these lines, two questions come to mind What is sweet about war? Why is it so fitting to die for one’s country? The author is trying to tell us about both sides of the war. On one side you feel that it describes the resentment of the country’s propaganda. Telling young men to go and fight for their country, and if you do die, you will die like a hero holding your country’s flag or saving your fellow brother. The other side of the poem shows us the gruesome reality of war. It suggests that war is not sweet except in the eyes of the country that justifies and uses propaganda to glorify war, and in the naive young boys who are eager to hear about the tales of bravery. It makes us realize that “Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori” is a lie, and there is nothing heroic about the grotesque realities of war.





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