In the poem "Dulce Et Decorum Est" Wilfred Owen describes the experience of watching a man "drown" in a gas attack. The vivid language that he uses to describe the man's suffering send a strong message to the reader - that war is as "vile as a sore".
Owen starts the poem by describing the exhaustion of the group of men. The poem begins with a simile -.
"bent double, like old beggars under sacks,".
which shows the reader immediately that the men are exhausted, walking slowly and dragging their feet along the ground, using up all their effort lifting one foot after another whilst they have no energy. He says that they are like "old beggars under sacks" because their tattered clothes are caked in mud, which conveys, to the reader, the horrific conditions of the trenches. Another simile that Owen uses is -.
"coughing like hags".
that quotation shows that the men are like old women with a harsh hacking cough, being ill and too weak. Their coughs would come from wearing the cold wet clothes, causing lung disease, you would almost be able to hear them coughing up phlegm. Owen goes on to tell us how the men were dragging their feet. Through the "sludge" they "trudge". He uses onomatopoeic words so that you get the sense of them being so frustrated and exhausted walking through the sticky, bloody, muddy, trenches.
The horrific images are relentless. Owen gives us no reprieve from the horror of the reality of war. He uses "blood-shod" to show that the soldier's feet were caked in blood, due to them having lost their boots from being trapped in the mud - walking through the trenches bare footed across sharp stones, grit and dead bodies, and also to show how weak their feet were with all the walking they had to do through the trenches. Owen uses -.
"Cursed through sludge".
to show how frustrated they were walking through the sludge. They had no energy; it was being drained from them as they were trying to escape from the trenches.
