Dulce et decorum est who is the speaker in this poem

Quick, boys! In all my dreams before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. The first line takes the reader straight into the ranks of the soldiers, an unusual opening, only we're told they resemble "old beggars" and "hags" note the similes by the speaker, who is actually in amongst this sick and motley crew.

The initial rhythm is slightly broken iambic pentameter until line five when commas and semi-colons and other punctuation reflect the disjointed efforts of the men to keep pace.

Also note the term "blood-shod" which suggests a parallel with horses, and the fact that many are lame, drunk, blind and deaf. The trauma of war has intoxicated the soldiers. Suddenly the call goes up: "Gas! He's too slow to don his gas mask and helmet, which would have saved his life by filtering out the toxins. The ecstasy is used here in the sense of a trance-like frenzy as the men hurriedly put on their helmets. It has nothing to do with happiness. Here the poem becomes personal and metaphorical.

The speaker sees the man consumed by gas as a drowning man, as if he were underwater. Misty panes add an unreal element to this traumatic scene, as though the speaker is looking through a window. Only two lines long, this stanza brings home the personal effect of the scene on the speaker. The image sears through and scars despite the dream-like atmosphere created by the green gas and the floundering soldier.

Owen chose the word "guttering" to describe the tears streaming down the face of the unfortunate man, a symptom of inhaling toxic gas. The speaker widens the issue by confronting the reader and especially the people at home, far away from the war , suggesting that if they too could experience what he had witnessed, they would not be so quick to praise those who die in action. They would be lying to future generations if they thought that death on the battlefield was sweet.

Owen does not hold back. His vivid imagery is quite shocking, his message direct and his conclusion sincere. The last four lines are thought to have been addressed to a Jessie Pope, a children's writer and journalist at the time, whose published book Jessie Pope's War Poems included a poem titled The Call , an encouragement for young men to enlist and fight in the war. Still, each of the themes centre around war and the antiquated notions associated with it.

The main themes of this poem are listed below:. One of the main themes of this poem is war. It deals with a soldier's experience in World War I, and contrasts the realities of war with the glorified notion of what serving in a war is like.

This poem takes aim at the idea of war presented by war-supporting propaganda. During World War I, propaganda came in the form of books, poems, posters, movies, radio and more, and presented an idea of war full of glory and pride rather than of death and destruction.

Politics are often the cause war, yet it is the men who have nothing to do with politics who are recruited to fight it. This poem underlines the wrongness of this dynamic. Everyone wants to be the hero. In reality, it is the man who keeps his head down is he who survives the longest.

This idea of patriotism fueled the hopes and dreams of many young soldiers who entered World War I. Once they realised the horrors that awaited them, however, this ideal patriotism was rightly viewed as ridiculous. Owen highlights this Latin phrase to show how antiquated and wrong it is when applied to the modern age. Through his work, which entirely destroys the idea that it is sweet and proper to die for one's country, he hopes to make readers realise that times have changed — that while war may have once been glorious, now, war is hell.

Owen must have decided against it as he worked on the draft, ending up with four unequal stanzas. The opening lines contain words such as bent, beggars, sacks, hags, cursed, haunting, trudge. This is the language of poverty and deprivation, hardly suitable for the glory of the battlefield where heroes are said to be found.

Yet this is precisely what the poet intended. Figurative language fights with literal language. This is no ordinary march. Most seem asleep, from exhaustion no doubt, suggesting that a dream world isn't too far distant—a dream world very unlike the resting place they're headed for. The second stanza's first line brings the reader directly in touch with the unfolding drama and, although these are soldiers, men as well as old beggars and hags , the simple word "boys" seems to put everything into perspective.

Wilfred Owen makes use of numerous poetic devices in this poem. Aside from the the structure, which is discussed above, Owen strategically uses assonance, alliteration, and iambic pentameter to transmit the dirty and dark feelings felt on the battlefield.

The iambic pentameter is dominant, but quite a few lines break with this rhythm, such as line five in the first stanza. This inconsistency reflects the strangeness of the situation. Strangely enough, reciting sections of Horace's Odes wasn't all that uncommon for the people during the war. Many people went to public school. For folks in England, "public" school actually means private school.

We're not really sure why. Everyone who went to public school learned the same Latin poems and heard the same speeches about glory and honor. Because our speaker knows that his readers are the educated elite, he's got no problem tossing off quotes from Horace.

The speaker of this poem is also a soldier through and through. He's trudging with the sleeping men at the beginning of the poem and he's dreaming about the same men at the poem's end.

The center of the poem hinges on our speaker as a witness. As he says, "I saw him drowning" Line 14 is the literal center of the poem. More importantly, it's the thematic heart of the poem, as well.

Alfred Tennyson's poem was based on a newspaper article that has made the poem biased and patriotic. The first stanza sets the scene and show what the soldiers would be feeling at the time. The men's condition at the time was so wretched th Owen mocks the idea of war being an honorable and nationalistic way to support ones country as he describes a situation in which death is detailed in gruesome detail. This poem is harsh, yet effective in displaying the acts of war and the affect the it has on all of the people involved, especially the foot soldiers who served in the front line, the trenches.

Owen serves as a great example of the losses that war brings. This supports the idea that the truth about the horrors of the war should be revealed to the civilians.

Open Document. Essay Sample Check Writing Quality. Owen, born in , died fighting in World War I in This British writer amplified the basic theme of the poem by beginning the poem in iambic pentameter; later, he diverged from the poetic form to submerge the reader into the chaotic and desperate atmosphere of the poem.

The dramatic situation, of this poem, provides information about the speaker, audience, and plot. The speaker addresses those who would present the idea of fighting as a soldier in the war, as a noble and heroic action. The use of past and present verb tenses explains the impact of the events on the narrator and the tone of the poem. The past tense is used in describing the war scene and situation, but the present tense , used to describe the dreams of the narrator, exemplifies the unforgettable nature of the events.

The first stanza of this poem immediately immerses the reader in the experience of battle, and it depicts the desperate and dilapidated nature of the soldiers. The dramatic situation in this poem follows the speaker who is a soldier. The dramatic examples and word choice submerges the reader into horrific scenes of war. The impact of war on a soldier is well developed, and the consequences of these experiences are examined as an effort to implore and correct the audience.

Works Cited Lutz, Kimberly. Moran, Daniel. Literature Resource Center, 11 May