Dulce Et Decorum Est Poetry Essay

Describe at least one memorable use of language in the text(s) Explain how this use of language helped you understand one or more key ideas in the text(s). In the poem ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ and ‘The Send-Off’ by Wilfred Owen, he uses a variety of language techniques including metaphor, personification and emotive expressive language to create a huge impact on readers evoking feelings such as horror and pity of the soldiers and of war. Owen’s intention of using these effective language techniques was to convey the horrific reality of war and to shatter the myth of war as a glorious mission.World War 1 (also known as the ‘Great War’) was a major war centered around Europe that involved countries from all over the globe between 1914 and 1918.

Wilfred Owen wrote ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ during 1917, serving as a soldier in the appalling trenches. Unfortunately, Owen was killed tragically in action just one week before the war ended. Owen’s use of effective imagery becomes memorable as it helps us understand the key idea that the glory of war is a myth.In the opening stanza, young soldiers are seen as “knock-kneed”, like old beggars under sacks” and “coughing like hags”. This simile lets us picture men who are exhausted beyond their limits.

The young soldiers “march asleep”, they “trudge and “limped on”. They are “deaf”, “lame” and “blind”. All rather pitiful language. These metaphors and pitiful language completely destroys the cliched image of marching bright soldiers and replaces it with a pitiful image of young men that look more like disheveled unkempt old men and hags than the young upright soldiers they are meant to be.Barely awake from lack of sleep, their smart uniforms resembling “sacks”, they cannot walk straight as their “blood-shod” feet caked in blood and wounds try to negotiate in the “sludge” and wastes of war. The words “blood-shod” creates a dehumanizing image as horses are shod, not men.

Owen describes an abominable setting and creates a desolate mood in the first stanza with the description of soldiers which lets the readers see that the battlefield is not a place of beauty and glory; but of fatigue from deafening sounds and endless fighting.As readers we understand that the powerful emotive words that describe the young soldiers as “blood-shod”, “deaf”, “lame”, “blind” and “drunk from fatigue” arouse a strong response where we denounce the horrors of war. In the second stanza Owen starts off with the monosyllabilic “Gas! Gas! Quick boys! ” places the reader in the moment. “Gas! ” which is followed by the even more emphatic “GAS! ” with the capital letters and exclamatory marks conveys a picture of sudden urgency, panic and the fear of the soldiers as a sudden gas attack overwhelms them. The stanza starts off with a jolt if urgency where soldiers attempt to save their own lives.However the horrors of war are exposed as Owen describes the harrowing reality of a soldier dying before his eyes.

The onomatopoeic words used to describe the dying man are the most perturbing and hard-hitting. It paints a gruesome unsettling image of the man panicking and the sounds of him dying, “He plunges at me, guttering, chocking, drowning”. This image gives us a feeling of dismay, shock and helplessness; much like Owen must have felt as he stood like a bystander, watching through the “misty panes” of his goggles of the man dying before his eyes.Owen shows the lasting effect of war on the young soldiers who witnessed a land reeking of death. The soldiers may have survived, but the horrific memories are etched into their “smothering dreams”. Owen proves his point that the glory of war is a complete myth.

Those who head off to war either die, or come back “half-dead”; haunted by what they have seen. Even in the present, a number of soldiers returning from war commit suicide due to their unfathomable guilt of surviving and the horrible traumatizing memories that continue to besiege them. The poet tells us, the glory of war is just an “old lie”.Owen shows the indignity of death in war as the dying man was “flung” in a wagon instead of being honored for his bravery and duty as the way they were told.

The last stanza goes into sickening detail of the dying man, “at every jolt the blood – come gargling from his froth-corrupted lungs”, the “white eyes writhing” in his face. The use of alliteration and assonance emphasizes how the memory has a powerful impact on those who witnessed the scene. Owen’s vivid imagery consumes the reader in horror, pity, shock, even disgust and is enough to sear the heart and mind.The cruel reality of war can be clearly seen as men lose their lives in the most pointless futile manner as they are just “flung” aside during death. Just by reading, the readers can perceive Owen’s bitter and disparaging tone towards war, the propaganda and sectors of society who glorified it. During those times before there was any media coverage, people only relied on the government and propaganda.

In Owen’s preface to an anthology of his poems published posthumously, he stated “my subject is war, and the pity of war. ” “All a poet can do today is warn.That is why true poets must be truthful. During those times, Wilfred Owen’s poems were one of the few ways to create awareness in civilians that were shrouded by the misleading propaganda. Presently, through the media and through many of Owen’s poems such as ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ and ‘The Send-Off’ we discover the true consequences and futility to war.

Owen uses a variety of language techniques and emotive language to create effective imagery which impacts the readers and evokes feelings such as horror, pity and hopelessness.