Dulce Et Decorum Est Analysis Essay

In the middle of a violent, gruesome battle, a soldier fights for his survival not for the glory of his country. Wilfred Owen describes, in great detail, the realization of this in his poem, Dulce et Decorum Est. Owen and his fellow soldiers struggle to stay awake due to the mental and physical toll war has taken on them. During this moment of weakness, war takes no mercy on them. Owen develops a theme of the falsely percepted glory in war buy using imagery in reflecting on this experience. In the first two stanzas as the author takes an observatory perspective, imagery highlights how desperate and helpless war has made the author and his fellow soldiers. The soldiers struggle to stay awake and aware of their surroundings, oblivious to the always looming threat of violence war presents. The helplessness of the soldiers becomes revealed as they are described as “old beggars under sacks” (1). A brief sense of peacefulness occurs while the soldiers “curse through the sludge” (2). The author fantastically describes how

One man did not put his gas mask on in time and payed the price of war. Owen describes the man to be “Flound’ring like...in fire or lime” (12). Survival becomes the prime motive for the soldiers. This man certainly was not thinking about glory for defending his country in the moment. He struggles as the author paints a horrific picture of him being absolutely helpless. The soldier’s “hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin” (20) presents a picture of hell on the battlefield. Even after removing the soldier from the gas and put in a wagon, “you could hear, at every jolt, the blood; come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs “ (21-22). The author uses gustatory, auditory, and tactile imagery to describe the soldier’s compromised body. This description of the soldier discards the glory in war and a darker, more realistic reality reveals