Dulce Et Decorum Est Essay
The poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ is made up of four irregular length stanzas, the third being only two lines. This couplet stands out from the rest of the poem and affirms that this scene continues to haunt the sleep of the narrator. The poem is written in three main stages, namely before, during and after the gas attack. Each of the stages vary in pace, tone and mood and a wide range of figurative methods and techniques are found within them.
The first stanza sets the scene before the gas attack. The repetition of the word ‘if’ in ‘If…you too could pace’, ‘If you could hear’ makes the reader place themselves within the scene and share the agony with the men who suffered. The hyperbole used in the phrase ‘Men marched asleep’ in order to stress the level of …show more content…
This is supported by the phrase ‘Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!’ The tone also sharpens as Owen dramatically re-creates the scene.
There are three present participants found within the third stanza couplet, ‘guttering, choking, and drowning’ which define the horrific sights before their eyes and those of the reader.
The simile ‘like old beggars under sacks’ found in the beginning of the poem not only evokes the difficulty of the soldier’s movements through the sludge but also shows how degrading war can be. The use of multiple similes such as ‘like hags’ arouses the responders pity for the men and gives the reader a sense of the soldiers weariness and numbness.
Graphic similes are used extensively and metaphors such as ‘drunk with fatigue’ enhance the visual imagery. Emotive language is used to invoke the senses and vividly describe sounds and feelings. Descriptive terms such as ‘beggars’, ‘knock-kneed’, ‘hags’ and ‘wile’ are explicit in their negativity. In the phrase ‘All went lame, all blind’, hyperbole emphasises their suffering. Visual imagery makes it simple to imagine their physical condition and their fumbling, lurching
The first stanza sets the scene before the gas attack. The repetition of the word ‘if’ in ‘If…you too could pace’, ‘If you could hear’ makes the reader place themselves within the scene and share the agony with the men who suffered. The hyperbole used in the phrase ‘Men marched asleep’ in order to stress the level of …show more content…
This is supported by the phrase ‘Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!’ The tone also sharpens as Owen dramatically re-creates the scene.
There are three present participants found within the third stanza couplet, ‘guttering, choking, and drowning’ which define the horrific sights before their eyes and those of the reader.
The simile ‘like old beggars under sacks’ found in the beginning of the poem not only evokes the difficulty of the soldier’s movements through the sludge but also shows how degrading war can be. The use of multiple similes such as ‘like hags’ arouses the responders pity for the men and gives the reader a sense of the soldiers weariness and numbness.
Graphic similes are used extensively and metaphors such as ‘drunk with fatigue’ enhance the visual imagery. Emotive language is used to invoke the senses and vividly describe sounds and feelings. Descriptive terms such as ‘beggars’, ‘knock-kneed’, ‘hags’ and ‘wile’ are explicit in their negativity. In the phrase ‘All went lame, all blind’, hyperbole emphasises their suffering. Visual imagery makes it simple to imagine their physical condition and their fumbling, lurching