The poem ‘Dulce et Decorum’ written by Wilfred Owen reveals the evils associated with war and tells about some of the secret realities of the previous century .The words “Dulce Et Decorum Est” mean it is sweet and meet to die for one’s country in English.
The poetic techniques employed by the poet create effective imagery that leaves the readers with feelings of sympathy. Wilfred Owen’s ability to absorb and captivate his readers is quite evident from the title alone.
In the first stanza the soldiers in this poem are worn out both mentally and physically by the horrors of war. The poet describes the soldiers like ‘beggars’ and ‘hags’ this illustrates the poet’s use of imagery to tell us the condition of the soldiers. Out of exhaustion ‘Men marched asleep’ this is the narrator’s way of telling us that soldiers walked like they were already dead.
The poem reveals the inhumane treatment that soldiers encountered during the previous century war. The poem is very genuine because Wilfred Owen himself experienced the barbarity of World War one first hand. The poem starts by giving us a glance of the difficult circumstances the soldiers find themselves in. Then the poet tells us of a horrific gas attack with catastrophic consequences as the soldiers are on their way home for the night. In the second stanza the soldiers are thrown into frenzy by the dropping of gas shells ‘Gas! Gas! Quick boys! ‘The soldiers jostle frantically for gas masks to protect them from choking as a result of the toxic gases.
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However not every soldier gets a mask and the narrator watches helplessly as one of the soldiers is choked to death by the toxic gases. These gases were chlorine and bromine gas and that is why World War one is referred to as a chemical warfare.
The horrific images of our narrator’s comrade being choked to death are still fresh in his mind years after the war. The sad part is that there was nothing he could to help these images appear everywhere. They are not only in his thoughts but also in his dreams and poetry.
At this point we learn that the soldier is suffering from post traumatic stress. In his dreams he is the one who actually suffocating other than the soldier he helplessly watched suffocate.’ Like a devil sick of sin’ since there nothing that could be done to the soldiers once they were exposed to the gas it was like the devil getting tired of the sin that he participated in. They could only watch the horrific scenes that followed.”The blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs” again the poet uses imagery to captivate the readers; these images could make one very distressed.
The narrator has an acrimonious cry at the end for the citizens’ back at home in England who unite and urge the youth to war for fame and national nobility to think again. They do not know the kind of trauma that is associated with war and what the speaker is going through. If they could experience war first like the narrator then they would never call for war again. According to the speaker there is no honor or fame in war and death.