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Dulce Et Decorum Est

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In the poem “Dulce et Decorum Est,” Wilfred Owen writes about a soldier traumatized by experiences of gas warfare during the First World War. The title, which translates from Latin to “it is sweet and honorable,” seems to promote and encourage war or patriotism. However, the title is actually ironic: glancing at the lines of the poem, readers quickly realize that the title reflects the public’s image of war, not the reality of the lives of soldiers. Through his use of strong imagery, diction, and shifts in tone and tense, Owen shatters the public’s idealistic notion of war and addresses his anti-war, anti-propaganda sentiments. Owen begins the poem by abruptly launching readers into the war, eliciting images that contrast the readers’ initial response. The similes “bent double, like old beggars under sacks” (1) and “coughing like hags” (2) immediately form a coupled image, effectively intensifying the depiction of the soldiers as filthy, …show more content…

The repetition and emphasis of “Gas! GAS!” (9) alerts and almost awakens the soldiers from their deathlike slumber. In fact, the soldier still seems to be in a dreamlike haze watching, “dim through the misty panes”, (13) his comrade “drowning” (14) “as under a green sea” (14) of gas, powerless to help. The man was “yelling,” “stumbling,” “flound’ring” like helpless animal, showing the degradation and loss of humanity. In the following couplet, Owen carries the past scene into the present day, something still vivid “[i]n all [his] dreams,” suggesting that time has had no effect on the healing of painful memories, a reference to the PTSD/shell shock that numerous faced following the war (15). In other words, Owen uses emotive language to recreate, for the readers, the scene of a soldier dying in physical agony, “plung[ing] at [him], guttering, choking, [and] drowning”

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