Analysis Of Wilfred Owen 's `` Dulce Et Decorum Est `` Essay

Wilfred Owen fought in the First World War and believed that “All a poet can do is warn that is why the true poet must be truthful.” (Wilfred Owen 1918,) Therefore, Owen believed that his duty as a poet and as a young soldier was to inform the world that the war was not as it was perceived to be. “Dulce et Decorum est” unveiled the agonizing truth of war and showed that it was not heroic or honourable, but was instead traumatizing and horrific.
Firstly, Owen uses imagery, representing his fellow soldiers as becoming disfigured and unrecognisable. He begins “Dulce...” by presenting them as “beggars,” “blind,” “drunk,” and “deaf.” suggesting the once-young males have become as useless as “beggars:”reduced humans who have no purpose in life, but to survive, as disabled people, who at that time were seen as a burden on others and should be isolated from society. “Deaf” and “blind” suggests that the men are ignoring their own fate, and have become disconnected from their surroundings by shutting out the war. It also proposes that the men are distancing themselves father from reality, until they inevitably die in war. This language shows that the war disfigures innocent lives, which were once driven by the false hopes of heroism and masculinity, engendered by poems such as “Wake up, England” by Robert Bridges (1914): “Thy courage as iron,” misleading us to believe it transforms men into heroes; strong as the “iron” weapons they fought with; ironically contrasting with the…