Critical Appreciation Of Dulce Et Decorum Est

The ground breaking poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ by Wilfred Owen was written to put across the reality of World War I. Owen was a victim at the front lines of the war for the British army. During the time he spent in the war he wrote ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ to express his opinions and to give a more realistic view of the First World War. Throughout this essay, I will be analysing the poem to see how successfully Wilfred Owen illustrates the realities of war.
The British public thought of soldiers during World War I as brave, courageous heroes. Britain encouraged people to go to war by making out as if it was a sweet thing to do which wouldn’t last long. The propaganda put a message across that you would be great heroes and it was the right thing …show more content…
‘Bent double, like old beggars under sacks’ is a simile which compares the young soldiers with ‘beggars under sacks’ because the soldiers can no longer stand upright. The word ‘old’ suggests that the disastrous conditions of the ear had aged the soldiers. ‘We cursed through sludge’ suggests that progress of the war was slow compared to the few months it was supposed to last. Owen used the metaphor ‘Men marched asleep’ which alerts the reader of how tired the soldiers were. The soldiers were so tired they were ‘drunk with fatigue’. They had lost all interest in their own health and wellbeing because of their weariness. Someone who is ‘drunk’ would exhibit characteristics such as swaying from side to side as they can’t fully control their movements, lack of concentration, deafness and this is how Owen saw the men. Owen shows the ‘deafness’ of the soldiers due to tiredness by putting ‘of disappointed shells that dropped behind.’ The poem is slow paced just like the soldiers and their progress which shows the realities of war unlike the government portrayed as only lasting a few …show more content…
‘Behind the wagon that we flung him in’ shows that the soldier was thrown into the wagon with no consideration. Owen uses the simile ‘His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin’ to notify the reader of how horrible the soldier looked because of the war. ‘Devil’s sick of sin’ alerts us that the conditions were so bad that even the devil (who lives for sins) would be fed up with sins. In the next line Owen uses the word ‘you’ which was aimed at a British politician who at the time was saying it was a great thing to go and fight for your country. ‘If you could hear, at every jolt’ shows that it was sharp/fast paced. ‘The blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs’ gives a mental vivid image of how bad the conditions really were. The word ‘corrupted’ tells us that the damage done was too much, so it was beyond repair so there was nothing that could be done to save the soldier. The simile ‘obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud’ used by Owen tells the reader of the disgust that he had to see on his friend meanwhile there was nothing he could do to help him. In the next line Owen uses ‘incurable’ which means it can’t be fixed so it was the end for the soldier. The word ‘Lie’ in the lines ‘the old Lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’ starts with a capital letter to empathise the point. ‘Old’ suggests that the ‘lie’ has been around and in use for a long time. The Latin