Analysis Of Dulce Et Decorum Est By Wilfred Owen

In "Dulce Et Decorum Est," Wilfred Owen is conveying numerous ideas that relate to war and the horrendous effects. No civilian truly understood then what war was actually like for the men, which brought about on anti-war poetry such as this one. The key ideas of this poem are that of the actual realities of war and the consequences. "Dulce Et Decorum Est" brings the reader into reality with its vivid imagery and shows the true horrors war brings mentally and physically. The way Owen's accomplishes these concepts is by a variety of poetic language techniques along with great usage of textual detail. Owen's anti-war poem is saying that "if one knew" how horrible war was, one wouldn't dare tell children the "old lie" that "it is glorious to die

Within the beginning of the poem, the reader is verbally shown the harsh conditions the soldiers were subjected to and how they mentally felt. Owen's begins right away addressing the soldiers struggling through the trenches of war "coughing [like] hags," essentially referring them to sick old women (line 2, Owen). He also writes how the men are each individually struggling; limping, lame, blind and deaf to further express that they are exhausted and worn down from war. Mary Paquette, author of "The Aftermath of War: Spiritual Distress" expresses that soldiers who are fighting within any war are subjected to "extreme and sometimes inhuman circumstances that test the limits of their psychological health" (143). The soldiers in the poem are all weakened by injuries and fatigue. The desperation of soldiers in war is obvious as they carry on regardless of being "drunk with fatigue" (line 7, Owen). These men are going through something that they will inevitably never forget. Paquette states that veterans will essentially never "forget what they experienced and what they did" and that war is a "private hell [for] many veterans [to] live with for the rest of their lives" (143). In the article "Spiritual Features of War-Related Moral Injury: A Primer for Clinicians," by Jennifer Wortmann and et al. it is quoted that "Warzone experiences that violate deeply held moral beliefs and

Paquette expresses that the military does a fantastic job taking someone and preparing them for war, yet they are "changed forever" (143). She continues to express that there is no "method [of] reversing the process of a ‘trained killer' back into [a] normal and adjusted civilian" (143). Within the poem, some views of the men's changes are viewed as "incurable sores on innocent tongues" (line 24, Owen). The "incurable sores" highlights the negative effects war had on men because it is so visual and it personifies the abstract quality in human form. "Innocent tongues" being about the young men sent to war, believing this is an honorable act on their end. In numerous ways, one could feel a sense of disgust due to the misrepresentation and the potential lies that the soldiers could have been fed. Thus, it is shown in the poem that there is no honor in war, it only taints and strips young men of their