"Dulce et Decorum Est" means "It is sweet and right" in Latin, which were widely used in the beginning of WWI. This poem ends with these words: "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori."- It is sweet and right to die for your country, which means, it is a great honor to die while fighting for your country. Contradictory to the title, this poem describes cruel and devastating sight of war. The soldiers in the poem are "like old beggars" and "coughing like hags"; it doesn't seem "sweet and right" at all. The writer of this poem, Wilfred Owen, uses irony, even sarcasm, to emphasize how horrible war is. He describes gruesome details of his real experiences in WWI. The poem is written from a soldier's point of view who is watching his comrades dying.
We can see painful deaths of soldiers: "...flound'ring like a man in fire or lime... As under a green see, I saw him drowning... He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning... the blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs..." Only by reading through these words, readers can imagine how agonizing the death of the soldier is. The poison gas fills the soldier's lungs with fluid which works exactly the same as when a person drowns. He writhes in agony of pain and foams at the mouth, while his fellow soldiers cannot do anything but watching his comrade meeting a violent death. Through brutal description, Owen shows the emptiness of war and tries to prevent it.
Comments
Post a Comment