Critical Paper Dulce Et Decorum Est Essay

Wilfred Owens Dulce et Decorum Est is a forlorn poem of his dumbfound in the First World War. Owen recounts his story as he and sonny boy infantrymen march knock-kneed, coughing like hags across the wasteland that is the battle movement(line 2). nearly of the focus is on the exhaustion from battle, but changes attention when hoots of flub-shells rain flock on their position. Weariness quickly turns to An ecstasy of clumsy (line 9) as the s sexagenarianiers salvo their gas masks, but whizz soldier is not fast enough. Owen because relates his first hand tale and demise of the foot earthly concern chocking to death from mustard gas.The reviewer is forced to witness this horrid death and ask ourselves Dulce et descorum est,/Pro patria mori (line 27-28). Lines 1-8 argon used to describe a scene of war-torn men on a forced march across a wasteland. much(prenominal) styles as, old beggars, and coughing like hags confides the reader an idea of what condition that the infantrymen are in. Such phrases denote a negative image as to associate the infantrymen as vagrants in poor physical condition. With those who lost their boots now find themselves blood-shod, quite than being bare foot.The word shod is an old English circumstance for shoeing a horse, again negative connotation of the infantrymen as sub-human beings. Lines 5 and 7 give depth to the state of despondency that general infantrymen are in. Owen chooses the phrase Drunk with fatigue to show the depth of exhaustion the infantrymen are experiencing. To be drunk, as to be intoxicated with the absolute exhaustion denoting fatigue as some drug that overwhelms the senses and coordination. They do not give credence to the humankind they are in until a gas shell sends them into an ecstasy of fumbling for a gas mask. Ecstasy is used not to give the connotation of delight and happiness, but rather the stark contrast of frenzy. Lines 9 and 11 end with fumbling and stumbling, respectively, to give depth the infantrymens state of condition. Later, in lines 14 and 16, an association is draw between the engulfing gas and a man drowning. Owen depicts a man in a green sea drowning (line 14) to be later plunging at him (line 16) both giving the allusion between being engulfed in water or noxious gas. Again, in line 17, Owen asks the reader to pace.. in some smothering dream a reoccurring constitution of being take of air.The second stanza utilizes the most guttural connotation of such words as to describe the carcass. From the garglingfroth-corrupted lungs, to the vile, incurable sores, Owen wants to galvanize the true wickedness of war. The reader is told of how gas can corrupt lungs and put sores on innocent tongues. This contrast is spanking because it depicts how war can taint that which is most holy. In saying that the corpses face hung like a devils unrestrained of sin, gives yet other reference between evil and war, but it has another meaning.To imply the devil would be overwhe lmed with such amount of evil implies that one cannot grasp the horrors of war. The poem then ends with a sort of thesis narration that to die for ones country is neither right nor sweet. Dulce begins as a slow trudge of despondent soldiers, to a fanatic head for the hills for safety, then a slow, visceral portrayal of life being wrenched extraneous from man, opposed to the titles suggestion for war hysteria and propaganda. But the main theme is not to just illustrate the dregs of war but to give the reader the truth of war. He makes the reader place themselves on the front line to look death and despair in the eye.