Wilfred Owen
Dulce et
Decorum Est.
Presented by Summaya R
Table of Contents
Wilfred Owens
Summary
Analysis - Stanza 1
Stanza 2
Stanza 3
Stanza 4
Meaning of the phrase,
“Dulce et decorum est pro
patria mori”
Themes
Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen fought in the British army during World War 1 (WW1).
Early on, he experienced a shell attack, and suffered from severe shell shock,
now more commonly known as PTSD. He had to be sent to a war hospital to
recover.
In November 1918, he was killed in action, just one week before the Armistice
(the ceasefire that ended hostilities between the Allies and Germany).
He is famous for challenging the media’s glorification of war and exposing
the harsh reality through his poetry.
In ‘Dulce et Decorum Est.’, he describes a group of soldiers who were caught
in a gas attack (Mustard gas was a weapon used frequently during WW1).
Summary
Wilfred Owen, the poet, tells of his first-hand experience in war.
He tells the tale of tired and wounded soldiers walking through
dirt and sludge. Suddenly, there is a warning about gas, which
the soldiers hurriedly and awkwardly heed by donning their
helmets. Unfortunately, one soldier is too late in donning the
helmet and his companions watch him ‘drowning’ in the gas. The
unfortunate soldier was thrown in the back of a wagon, where it is
implied that he was left to die. The persona points out that if you
(the reader/ listener) could have witnessed these events, then
you would not tell children the old lie: dulce et decorum est pro-
Patria Mori (It is sweet and honourable to die for one’s country).
Analysis - Stanza 1
The soldiers are slouched over, lacking energy and vivacity as
though encumbered by a literal weight. The poet uses a simile in "like
old beggars under sacks," showing that just like beggars weighed
down by heavy sacks and unable to stand up straight due to old
age, the soldiers are bent over in their slow trudge, exhausted.
Alliteration- 'knock kneed'- continues a theme that progresses
throughout the poem- the description of the disfiguration of the
soldiers. They didn't go to war looking like this, but they have been
spent, and their bodies are reeling from the harmful effects of war.
Simile- 'coughing like hags' comparing their dry, hacking coughing
to that of an old woman (hag).
Analysis - Stanza 2
Simile- 'flound'ring like a man in fire' to compare his
struggling, stumbling, plunging movements to that of a
man doused in flames.
Simile- as under a green sea- the thick green light
around them is compared to a green sea. In the same
way the sea is a thick body of water surrounding the
person submerged in it, the gas has surrounded them
and seems as thick as the water in the ocean.
Analysis - Stanza 3
"In all my dreams before my helpless sight"
This line tells us that the soldier who watched, helpless, as his comrade
died from mustard gas is forever haunted by what he witnessed.
"He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning."
He is guttering (tears streaming down his face, a symptom of inhaling
toxic gas), choking and drowning- and all the soldiers could do is
watch, unable to do anything to help the comrade who was poisoned
by mustard gas.
Analysis - Stanza 4
Personification - “eyes writhing in his face.”
His eyes are said to be writhing, moving randomly, in the same way a
human twists and squirms, contorting their body in pain.
Simile - “his hanging face like a devil's sick of sin” compares the unnatural
appearance of his face to that of a devil horrified of its own evil.
Simile - “obscene as cancer” comparing the obscenity and fatality of this
blood emerging from his lungs to that of cancer. A disease that readers
could relate to. He wants readers to empathize with both the dying soldier
and the ones who survived, but are forever haunted (they have PTSD).
Simile - “bitter as the cud” compares the blood to the bitter, regurgitated,
half-digested material cattle chew on.
“Dulce et decorum est
pro patria mori.”
This statement literally means it is sweet and fitting to die for
one’s country.
The persona/ poet clearly does NOT believe this to be the case.
Dulce et decorum est means beautiful and fitting.
This is the title of the poem and it's the lie told to young men to
get them to sign up for war.
Pro patria mori is the truth presented in the last line of the
poem after the poet has revealed the horrors of war.
Themes
Death War
1 Death pervades this entire poem. The soldiers 3 Owens, through simile, wishes to educate the
are surrounded by death, as they are in a masses about the realities of war. He hoped that
place where there lives can be snuffed out at if people know what war was really like, they
any moment. They are surrounded by gun fire would not support it. He wants to counter the
and bombs dropping around them. Owens heroic myths of contemporary poets such as
wants to show the masses how soldiers will Rupert Brooke, whose poem “The Soldier”
die in war - a brutal, agonizing death by nerve sentimentalizes death in war by stating that after
gas. This is the reality of modern warfare. he dies in battle, the patriotic soldier-speaker will
be “at peace,” resting serenely “under an English
2 Patriotism
At that time, in England, young men were taught that
heaven.” Owens wants to tell people that, in
reality, war is inhumane and soldiers will be
there was no greater honor than to fight and die for discarded, like cattle, into the back of a wagon.
one's country. Owens, through imagery, makes it clear They won't be honored as heroes.
that war is anything but heroic, glorious, or sweet. It is
degrading, turning young men into “beggars” and “hags”
who limp along on bleeding feet. It is not brave, strong
Survival
4
men meeting in honorable battle; instead, it is the
impersonal horror of exploding canisters of lethal green There is a price for survival- PTSD. Even
nerve gas and dying men thrown onto wagons. The
the soldiers who survive will forever be
poem ends with the poet's pleas to end the patriotic lies
that to fight and die for one's country is honorable. scarred by what they witnessed.
Thank
You
