Tone Of Dulce Et Decorum Est

“Dulce et Decorum Est” is a poem written by Wilfred Owen about World War I. The title is a shortened version of the Latin saying dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, which translates to it is sweet and honorable to die for one’s country. The poet doesn’t agree with this saying at all; he agrees with the exact opposite. Before World War I, the public thought becoming a soldier and fighting in a war was glorious and exciting. Owen was a soldier in the English military, but he witnessed all the horrors and tragedies that occurred in the war instead of glory. He was baffled by the perception of war being great and glorious, so he wrote this poem to inform everyone of the true horrors of war. In order to do this, he created a theme that fighting

In the beginning of the poem, Owen describes the soldiers by saying, “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, / Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,” (1-2). When someone describes a person as an old beggar or a hag, people use it in a negative way to insult the other person. When the author uses these words to describe the soldiers, he has a negative attitude towards fighting, not the soldiers themselves. By having this attitude throughout the poem, he's reinforcing that negative attitude in the reader. The poet gives his own thoughts to what these soldiers are exactly like when he says, “To children ardent for some desperate glory,” (26). Children are young, inexperienced people that tend to be very rash and ignorant. Soldiers seem to be great, powerful people, but Owen is expressing his negative attitude by calling the decision to join the war rash and ignorant. Children also tend to be very stubborn and persistent in obtaining what they want, since they haven’t fully developed themselves to understand consequences. Again the poet is conveying his negative attitude to fighting by saying that these soldiers are being a bit stubborn and that they just don’t simply understand the consequences of glory hunting in war, due to them just being lacking experience, which also creates this unwanted feeling in