Dulce Et Decorum Est Analysis Essay

Wilfred Owen exhibits the intense fear of warfare through “Dulce Et Decorum Est”. Owen wakens the memories of the passing of one of his allies. He had succumbed to the excruciating pain of sulfur gas right before Owen’s eyes, leaving him traumatized. “Dulce Et Decorum Est” is an allegory for bound, ill-fated camaraderie. Through the use of oxymora, imagery, and allusion, Owen is able demonstrate core-shaking loss. Using final words of the poem, “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,” Owen makes an allusion to Roman poet Horace’s Odes. The Latin phrase translates to: it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. This saying becomes the centerpiece of the poem’s irony. Firsthand experience with war is not ‘sweet’ nor ‘fitting,’ here it is …show more content…
In the first line, “[b]ent double, like old beggars under sacks,” readers can visualize the lethargy of the soldiers, moving slowly as a customary rule of survival. By juxtaposing them as ‘beggars,’ the assumption can be made that they were very unclean due to their warfare customs. The following line reads that the soldiers were “[...]coughing like hags,” in this case readers can assume that they were coughing tirelessly. In war, soldiers are faced with an unhealthy environment of dust and death for such a large period of time that their wellbeing may begin to weaken. Readers can believe that the soldiers are helpless, aged, and overworked. The sixth and seventh lines, “[a]ll went lame; all blind; drunk with fatigue,” show that the soldiers are so exhausted that they have become numb to their environment. This may also show how long they have been on the battlegrounds. The use of imagery can be separated into two categories: external and internal. In the first and second stanzas, Owen writes regarding the soldiers experiences with war collectively, explaining that they were fatigued and malformed from working frequently. In lines 13-16, Owen describes the experience as simply his own. He writes, “[d]im through the misty panes and thick green light, as under a green sea, I saw him drowning,” meaning that Owen had witnessed his ally become engulfed by gas through the hazy glass of

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