Dulce Et Decorum Est By Wilfred Owen

The tone of the poem is sombre, dark, and serious. Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,  Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,  Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs  And towards our distant rest began to trudge.  Men are described as old beggars and hags. They walk through mud with great difficulty

The imagery is stark and violent But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,  And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime9 . . .  Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,  As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. Owen describes a gas attack a green sea. Owen describes men as drowning in the gas.

The rhyme scheme is consistant ab,ab and adds to the impact of the poem If in some smothering dreams you too could pace  Behind the wagon that we flung him in,  And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,  His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; My friend, you would not tell with such high zest  To children ardent for some desperate glory,  The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est  Pro patria mori. The consistent rhyme pattern of the poem adds a punchy feeling to the poem. The punchy feeling is especially felt as it highlights the ending message.

Similes are used to paint a dark and violent picture And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,  His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud  Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues The face looks as horrible as the devil’s face who is tired of seeing sin. What he sees is horrible like cancer or like the pus oozing from wounds on a tongue.

The theme is made clear in the last two stanzas “nobility in war is a lie” and “War is horrible” If in some smothering dreams you too could pace  Behind the wagon that we flung him in,  And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,  His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; My friend, you would not tell with such high zest13  To children ardent14 for some desperate glory,  The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est  Pro patria mori. If you did not die a horrible death like this one, then you surely saw it. Owen describes what he saw while he was a soldier. Unfortunately, he also died as a soldier in WWI. The Latin phrase (popular before WWI) means “It is sweet and noble to die for your country”. Earlier, the poet describes a more accurate view of what war really looks like.

Theme – continued The lie The truth