Dulce et Decorum est: Owen Explores Loss, Suffering, and the Negativity of War
‘Owens poems reveal tenderness and compassion towards those whose lives have been destroyed by the war’
Wilfred Owen was the greatest war poet in World War I. His work on the poems were hugely significant because they challenge the notion accepted by society of what it was like for men to go to war. His varying narrative perspective puts him sometimes at the heart of the action and sometimes as a observer, but he never fails to convey the experience of the everyday man, the horrors and realities of war, and the psychological impact on its participates.
Owen attempts to convey to the reader the experiences of the everyday man to demonstrate how unglamorous and futile war in fact was. In Strange Meetings, Owen displays a meeting with an individual who belonged to the opposing side, in which he stated to him ‘I am the enemy you killed my friend’. Although the man belonged to the opposing side, Owen still demonstrates compassion towards him by calling him a ‘friend’, friends who are forced to employ horrific and futile deaths upon one another. Similarly, in Apologia Owen exemplifies the fact soldiers were forced to ‘not feel sickness or remorse for murder’, which resulted in the exact opposite. Many soldiers, which Owen attempts to portray, showed tenderness and compassion to the opposing soldiers despite the negativity depicted against one another. The reader is forced to elicit negative emotions towards the instigators of war, which forced these men to participate in such events. Not only does Owen portray tenderness and compassion to the soldiers, he attempts to elicit negative emotions from to reader to disregard war.
The horrors and realities of war were fabricated by governments which forced Owen to portray the realities of war and due to this Owen displays a higher tenderness and compassion for the death of soldiers. Many of the soldiers in the war were of a young age and due to this Owen believed it was the wrong doing and God would judge these
Wilfred Owen was the greatest war poet in World War I. His work on the poems were hugely significant because they challenge the notion accepted by society of what it was like for men to go to war. His varying narrative perspective puts him sometimes at the heart of the action and sometimes as a observer, but he never fails to convey the experience of the everyday man, the horrors and realities of war, and the psychological impact on its participates.
Owen attempts to convey to the reader the experiences of the everyday man to demonstrate how unglamorous and futile war in fact was. In Strange Meetings, Owen displays a meeting with an individual who belonged to the opposing side, in which he stated to him ‘I am the enemy you killed my friend’. Although the man belonged to the opposing side, Owen still demonstrates compassion towards him by calling him a ‘friend’, friends who are forced to employ horrific and futile deaths upon one another. Similarly, in Apologia Owen exemplifies the fact soldiers were forced to ‘not feel sickness or remorse for murder’, which resulted in the exact opposite. Many soldiers, which Owen attempts to portray, showed tenderness and compassion to the opposing soldiers despite the negativity depicted against one another. The reader is forced to elicit negative emotions towards the instigators of war, which forced these men to participate in such events. Not only does Owen portray tenderness and compassion to the soldiers, he attempts to elicit negative emotions from to reader to disregard war.
The horrors and realities of war were fabricated by governments which forced Owen to portray the realities of war and due to this Owen displays a higher tenderness and compassion for the death of soldiers. Many of the soldiers in the war were of a young age and due to this Owen believed it was the wrong doing and God would judge these