Wilfred Owen's Dulce Et Decorum Est

World War I challenged all of America’s conventions, morals, and ideals. World War I saw the invention of weapons, such as, heavy artillery and tanks, the use of poison, trench warfare, and massive loss of human life (Teachout). Some poets, “including Wilfred Owen, fought in the war, and some like Owen, died in the war” (Teachout). The poetry of these "war poets” gives a first-hand explanation of the devastation of war. In "Dulce Et Decorum Est", Wilfred Owen reacts to the war by turning conservative poetic methods into something that appears to be normal on the surface but in reality is tarnished (Teachout). Owen's “break from the conventional poetic form serves to symbolize the breakdown of society's value system - a system that had been

He is writing about a horrifying scene of war and of a man drowning in poisonous gas. At the first look at Owen’s “Dulce Et Decorum Est”, it appears conventional; it rhymes, follows an ABAB, CDCD pattern, and the breaks are irregular (Teachout). However, a more important formal feature of this poem is the fact that Owen makes it look like a poem written in Iambic Pentameter (Teachout). However, there is “nothing poetically conventional about the stresses within each line” (Teachout). Owen breakdowns this iambic rhythm mainly with his use of punctuation. The punctuation causes the poem to sound conversational when read. In "Dulce Et Decorum Est", Wilfred Owen uses reactionary language. There are four main image groups which run all the way through the poem. The first is of sleep or dreams. In fact, Owen “suffered from unbearable nightmares indicative of shell shock” (Teachout). Examples “of this image are found in line three-“haunting”, line five-"Men marched asleep", line fifteen-"In all my dreams", and line seventeen-"smothering dreams" (Teachout). The second image group is of the sea or of someone drowning. These images can be found mainly in the second and third stanzas “in line twelve-“flound'ring”, line thirteen-"misty panes (portholes), line fourteen-"as under a green sea, I saw him drowning", and line sixteen-"guttering, choking, drowning" (Teachout). The third image group is

The title conveys a strong, depressed feeling; “usually an anthem is a joyous song of celebration but when coupled with “Doomed Youth”, anthem takes on a whole new meaning that implies much sorrow” (Garofano). Also, “Doomed Youth” delivers “a sorrowful impression because it foretells of young people having no hope” (Garofano). The first line in this poem describes the youth as “dying cattle”. This description shows how awful war is and also portrays multiples of people being slaughtered. The simile is showing how the soldiers are no more important than cattle which are lead to the slaughter without feeling. Own gives “the sonnet a powerful, negative connotation from the very beginning” (Garofano). The poem has two perspectives. In the first stanza, Wilfred Owen makes a list of the sounds of war, and the weapons of destructions “such as “guns” (line two), “rifles” (line three), and “shells” (line seven), which are linked to religious imagery such as “bells” (line five) and “prayers” (line five)” (Garofano). In contrast, the second stanza talks about the families of those who die in the war. Usually at funerals for the deceased there are bells ringing and prayers, but Owen illustrates that in war there are only echoes of guns being fired. In the last stanza Owen writes, “…but in their eyes shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.” Here he displays the families’