What Is Dulce Et Decorum Est About In Summary?

I chose this poem because ever since I was little I have found this so very moving. I first read and learnt this poem when I was about seven and now when I think of war poetry I immediately think of this poem. I think this poem lies very close to the truth and that the people who entice young schoolboys into thinking war is a great thing are cruel and above all liars.

This poem explains things in a harsh and blunt way.

It portrays the truth about this war, not the parades and honour part but the death, corruption and brutal murders of so many young men. Owen uses words the men would have used and uses alliteration and metaphors, similes and onomatopoeia. There is a definite rhyme scheme to this poem and some lines do not fit into this. These lines stick out and draw the reader in and create a point. The most poignant lines are the ones that do not fit in and they also are the most important ones, which the poem centres around.

In these most important lines there is quite a lot of repetition, which reinforces the importance of them.

In the first few lines Owen uses some quite descriptive similes such as ‘coughing like hags’. This is effective because it makes the reader think of a raspy, dry cough, the kind which makes your entire body jolt and your breathing restricted. Owen also uses a compound adjective ‘knock-kneed’ which makes the reader think more about what they look like and the physical evidence of their fighting.

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Owen uses words like’ trudge’ which makes you think that it was very hard to move and lift your feet through the mud.

The way Owen says’ distant rest’ makes you feel that the soldiers had such a long way to go until they could rest and that not all of them could make it. It also signifies that this war is far from over and that the long journey of it has only just begun. The poem then discusses the conditions the men were in such as the way few had boots but carried on because there was little else they could do.

The way these men limped on ‘blood shod’ suggests that it really means that these men are scarred and battered and yet they still fight and they still march. The way they are ‘drunk with fatigue’ suggests that these men have been out here a long time and have had little rest. The way that they are deaf even to the bombs suggest that they have been here so long they have forgotten what it really is and they are so used to being bombarded that they can hardly hear the shells anymore.

Even the bombs are tired which suggests that thousands of tonnes of bombs have been fired before and nothing has come of good has come of it so why drop any more which relates back to the question’ why do we need to fight?’ a question many grown men can even begin to look at answering.

Then the gas strikes and the man in charge yells ‘boys’ that emphasises just how young these boys are. The thought that the other men see this boy ‘drowning’ is awful. It is like these men can only watch and not do anything, which is the worst kind of pain most people can imagine ever experiencing.

The way ‘In all my dreams’ suggests that this is one of those things that this man will never forget and that these imagines will haunt him for ever. This man is ‘guttering, choking, drowning’ and yet none can help him. ‘If in some smothering dreams’ this is like the reader just can not know what it is like and if you could even dream it , it would disturb you so much you would probably choke.

The way the men have to just fling him in a cart just reiterates the way that it is like this man is no longer somebody’s son, brother, father or uncle; it is now just another soldier who has just been the victim of yet another murder. Owen gets quite angry with people who say that war is a noble thing to fight in and he tries to tell people that the old ‘lie’ is wrong.