The poem “Dulce et Decorum est” by Wilfred Owen gives us an inside view of what it was like for soldiers in the appalling conditions of trench warfare from 1914 until 1918.

This poem lets the readers build up a picture of what men during the First World War had to endure; pain, food rationing, trench foot, mustard gas and even if you were very unfortunate, you could be lying in no-mans-land injured, screaming and shouting.

An image that paints a vivid picture in our heads of the horrific nature of war is shown in verse one. There we are given one of the expressions used by Owen to compare the men like “old beggars under sacks”. This gives us an impression of what it must have been like for the soldiers. The awful weather, day after day, causing the land they walked over to turn into slime. The uniforms worn by the men would have been torn, dirty and pieces missing causing the men to be unhappy. They had to march in almost impossible conditions. “…Knock-kneed coughing like hags…” Here we can visualise an image of a body bent double, wheezing and coughing like old witches, shattering the body in one blow! The young men are referred to as “hags”, in other words

After reading about the events which Wilfred Owen has witnessed, one would in most cases struggle to go on living. It seems extraordinary that Owen and many others survived the massacres and atrocities of the war and managed to continue leading a normal life. You wouldn’t forget the memories of the battlefield, the blood and the countless number of corpses around you in a hurry but for Owen himself, he made a lucky escape because lets face it, he’d rather have died than go back to his parents, going through in his head what happened not being able to tell anyone of it and torturing himself. He didn’t feel home was the place to go if he did survive after all the things he’d seen. Wilfred Owen sadly died on Armistice Day in 1918 just after coming out of hospital months earlier. His parents were sent a telegram that very day probably saying he was a brave soldier and died serving his country. However, the worst thing of all for Owen was hearing the women say to men as young as sixteen that to die for ones country is both sweet and noble!

The final and most bitter part of the poem that points a striking picture of the disgusting nature of war would have to b the expressions used by the poet, “…at every jolt…”, “…gargling…”, “…froth-corrupted…” and “…as bitter as the cud…” The sudden bump of the wagon in a keyhole. The body will jerk in pain resulting in the boy spewing out bits of lung and blood. The description used by Owen has been deliberately graphic to emphasise such a waste of a young boy’s life!

An image that Wilfred Owen points out to us of the horrifying scenes of war is in verse three where he states that if you had to witness as he did, the torturous death of a young solider, you wouldn’t be so keen to tell such young men to go and fight or their country. Owen wants us to be aware of what he has seen, the smothering dream which makes you panic. “Pace behind the wagon”, this makes us think of mourners at a funeral walking slowly and shortly behind the coffin. Owen uses the expression “flung” to address to us that men half dead had been given no respect and treated as though there is no hope for them i

Some topics in this essay:
World War, Wilfred Owen, Gas Quick, Armistice Day, Patria Mori, wilfred owen, nature war, et decorum, front line, war verse,