Wilfred Owen's Poem 'Dulce Et Decorum Est'

In the crucial times of World War I there were two extremely diverse views on the war; one being that it was a beautiful and romantic sacrifice and the other that it was a horrible and inhumane duty. No one really understood the true and harsh reality of war unless they witnessed the brutality first hand. In Wilfred Owen 's poem, "Dulce et Decorum Est", he conveys the dark side of the war. Through the intense diction, imagery, and figurative language that Owen incorporates he portrays the evil truth behind the war and derives a hopeless and dreary tone. Owen acquires the dark tone with his vivid and vile diction. When he illustrates the gas bombing of the soldiers through his powerful words he conveys the drowning man as an unbearable scene. When he states how the man was "gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud" he portrays him as being on the verge of death. In comparing the man 's desperate actions to something as dreadful as cancer causes the tone to automatically depict hopelessness. Also, when Owen speaks of how the man 's "hanging face" was like a "devil 's sick of sin" he shows how tired the man is of fighting for his life when there is no foreseeable future for him. The tone is also evoked through the horrific imagery that is used to present the crudeness of war. Also when Owen is

Another element that Owen uses to portray his attitude towards war and the tone is the figurative language that he implements. When the gas comes face to face with the soldiers he explains how the man was "flound 'ring like a man in fire or lime...". This metaphor gives a deep insight on the level of pain the man was experiencing. The men already had a hard time breathing as it was, Owen exclaims how they were "coughing like hags". This other metaphor goes to show how the soldier’s lungs already couldn 't stand the unbearable air, let alone a gas filled smog. By illustrating these images Owen successfully exudes the