“Dulce et Decorum est” discusses the lives of soldiers in World War I and talks about how inglorious real combat is. Wilfred Owen creates a very startling and grotesque image when he talks about the soldiers and combat. Owen seems to feel sorry for the poems main subjects, which are the soldiers. There is one soldier in particular that becomes the main focus of this poem and Owen feels sorry for this man and what he had to experience. Owen uses very specific words to describe the scene and he sets the tone very well with these images.
Wilfred Owen describes the soldiers in the beginning as, “Bent double, like old beggars over sacks (521).” This opening gives the poem a solemn and tired tone. It goes on to describe the soldiers marching or limping in some cases. These soldiers are tired and don’t even care about the mortars dropping near them. Then gas comes out of one of the shells. When one of the soldiers fails to get his gas mask on, Owen describes the effects, “If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood come gargling from the froth-corrupting lungs, obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues (522).” This description of the horrid symptoms of the gas give the poem a tone of fear and disgust. The soldier died in such an inglorious and gruesome way. The speaker’s attitude towards war is conveyed very well through this scene. The speaker believes that war is not glorious, but gruesome and horrible.
abrahamkanz 