How Does Wilfred Owen Use Imagery In Dulce Et Decorum Est

A similar attitude can be found in Wilfred Owen’s poem Dulce et Decorum Est in which the author reveals the horrors of war through several poetic devices. Owen’s attitude toward war is first revealed through vivid imagery found on lines 9-16 at which point the author illustrates the scene of a soldier failing to put on his gas mask and dying in mustard gas. Within this scene the author also uses aggressive diction with words such as “drowning”, “guttering”, and “choking”, all of which invoke in the reader a sense of sympathy and understanding of the horrible acts both witnessed and experienced by soldiers. Owen’s also employs different purposes for each stanza in the poem, the first stanza is very literal in the description of the soldiers, with a constant meter, until it is broken by different punctuation, seemingly representing the struggle of the broken down group to keep pace. The second stanza reveals an ugly and horrific side of warfare with the appalling description of a soldier in “an ecstasy of fumbling” for his gas mask but unfortunately fails to put it on in time. Owen then uses the word “drowning” to describe said soldier, which is both metaphorical, as he is lost “under a green sea”, but also to describe the atrocious effects of mustard gas which liquefies the lungs of its victims. The third stanza

The aftermath o the gas attacks is addressed in the last stanza. The reader is now apart of the poem by the use of the possessive pronoun "you too" that imposes the reader to empathise with the injured victim. The victim is then described by the gruesome alliteration and assonance of "watch the white eyes writhing in his face" that together enhance the vivid sight. The continuing imagery of "gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs" uses onomatopoeia to lead the reader to believe that war is incorrectly glorified. The last lines "My friend, you would not tell with such a high zest/ To children ardent for some desperate glory,/The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

From the earliest records of history, accounts of war have been portrayed as valiant acts of heroism. Children and adults alike have gathered together to hear tales of war and its glory. From the stories of Alexander the Great to recent-day movies like Saving Private Ryan, war has been praised and exalted with words such as bravery, honor, and freedom. However, Wilfred Owen's poem "Dulce et Decorum Est" shows the ugly, horrible side of fighting. By use of gripping words and vivid descriptions, Owen paints incredible pictures of what World War I was really like. He tears away the glory and drama and reveals the real essence of fighting: fear, torture, and death. No

"they’re picking them up, those they can find, and bringing them home, they’re bringing them in, piled on the hulls of Grants, in trucks, in convoys, they’re zipping them up in green plastic bags, . . . they are bringing them home." The use of repetition, and the poem’s rhythmic style, we are given the impression of an endless conveyor belt. This quote also gives us meaning; that war is almost like a business, manufacturing soldiers and sending them home. "curly-heads, kinky-hairs, crew-cuts, balding non-coms" Imagery is used in this quote to show that war is indiscriminate, war does not care for race, religion, background etc. "in their sterile housing they tilt towards these like skiers– taxiing in, on the long runways" Metaphor is used to show the dead soldiers moving about in their coffins before landing on the runway, this quote also gives the reader a realisation of the reality of

Throughout the ages, poetry has played--and continues to play--a significant part in the shaping of a generation. It ranges from passionate sonnets of love to the gruesome realities of life. One such example of harsh realism is Wilfred Owen 's "Dulce et Decorum Est." Owen 's piece breaks the conventions of early 20th Century modernism and idealistic war poetry, vividly depicts the traumatizing experiences of World War I, and employs various poetic devices to further his haunted tone and overall message of war 's cruel truths.

In the second stanza the distinctive experience of power is present. The use of the technique of imagery and emotive words “to pluck them from the shallows and bury them in burrows’ tells us that the soldiers were strong, loyal and had enough power within a degree to assist fellow soldiers. The use of personification to create sound “sob and clubbing of the gunfire” This leads the audience to understand what the soldiers were up against without even directly saying it. The imagery visually shows the scene in their

This technique serves to emphasize the solemn and serious content. In stanza one, Owen describes the soldiers as they set off towards the army base from the front line. The simile "Bent double, like old beggars"(1) not only says that they are tired, but that they are so tired they have been brought down to the level of beggars who have not slept in a bed for weeks on end. Also, the simile "coughing like hags"(2) helps to depict the soldiers? poor health and depressed state of mind. Owen makes us picture the soldiers as ill, disturbed and utterly exhausted. He shows that this is not the government-projected stereotype of a soldier, in gleaming boots and crisp new uniform, but is the true illustration of the poor mental and physical state of the soldiers. By telling us that many of the platoon are barefoot, Owen gives us an idea of how awful the soldiers? journey already is; it then gets even worse. Owen tells us that the soldiers, although they must have been trained, still do not notice the deadly mustard gas shells being fired at them from behind; such is the extent of their exhaustion.

. . . Like I was losing myself, everything spilling out” (O’Brien 202). Provided with only laconic, expository definitions, an audience cannot truly feel the pains of war. O’Brien utilizes descriptions which evoke all the senses and submerge the audience in the unique and powerful sensations of war. Witnessing war’s pains through the familiar tactile crunch of an ornament or the splash of liquid spilling, the audience can immediately understand the inconceivable pressure placed on the soldier’s injured body. O’Brien continues, “All I could do was scream. . . . I tightened up and squeezed. . . . then I slipped under for a while” (203). His abrupt syntax and terse diction conveys a quickness to these events. Not bothering with extraneous adornment, his raw images transport the audience to the urgency of the moment and the severity of the pain. Now supplied with an eyewitness’s perspective of war’s injuries, the audience can begin to recognize the significance of the suffering. O’Brien tells his audience, “Tinny sounds get heightened and distorted. . . . There was rifle fire somewhere off to my right, and people yelling, except none of it seemed real anymore. I smelled myself dying” (203). In the same frame, O’Brien paints the rumbling chaos of the big war juxtaposed with the slow death of the small individual. His description emphasizes the purposeless discord and confusion of war and seeks to condemn its disorder. He argues that war’s lack of

When Jarrell says the words, "hunched in the belly," the reader gets a very uncomfortable feeling. In line number three the reader gets visual imagery as well as slight tactile imagery. The visual imagery comes when Jarrell says, "Six miles from earth." The reader gets a clear image of something being very high above the ground. When the author says, "loosed from the dream of life," the reader gets a slight feeling of death or a vision of someone dying. The fourth line, "I woke to the black flak and the nightmare fighters," brings the reader visual, auditory and tactile imagery. The reader can picture someone waking up to shrapnel, from an exploding bomb, flying by their head. One can hear the gunfire of the, "nightmare fighters," along with the exploding shells. The reader also gets a tactile image when the author says, "I woke up," because everyone knows what it is like to wake up from a sleep. In the fifth and final line the reader gets a very graphic visual image. The reader can picture someone's body being so destroyed that instead of removing the body from the turret the soldiers must wash it out with a hose.

Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” is a poem made of four stanzas in an a, b, a, b rhyme scheme. There is hardly any rhythm to the entire poem, although Owen makes it sound like it is in iambic pentameter in some lines. Every stanza has a different amount of lines, ranging from two to twelve. To convey the poem’s purpose, Owen uses an unconventional poem style and horrid, graphic images of the frontlines to convey the unbearable circumstances that many young soldiers went through in World War I. Not only did these men have to partake in such painful duties, but these duties contrasted with the view of the war made by the populace of the mainland country. Many of these people are pro-war and would never see the battlefield themselves. Owen’s use of word choice, imagery, metaphors, exaggeration, and the contrast between the young, war-deteriorated soldiers and populace’s favorable view of war creates Owen’s own unfavorable view of the war to readers.

With the opening stanza, Owen starts off with a simile in line one, “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks”. The poet is trying to stem away from the ideal that people believe soldiers are suppose be fresh, strong, and healthy because of how propaganda influenced them to think that way. Through the use of the first line, he shows the true, harsh reality by presenting the boys as filthy beggars and not the strong willed and handsome men they were thought to be. Another simile used to show the harsh reality of World War 1 is, “coughing like hags”, as it “indicates a state of severe fatigue and serious illness” (Benson 43) that the men suffered through in the trench warfare. Finally, Owen uses the simile, “Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud”, to help allude to the “vileness of a disease

Another tool in developing the effectiveness of the poem is the use of compelling figurative language in the poem helps to reveal the reality of war. In the first line, the metaphor, ?Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,?(1) shows us that the troops are so tired that they can be compared to old beggars. Also, the simile "coughing like hags"(2) helps to depict the soldiers? poor health and depressed state of mind. Owen makes us picture the soldiers as ill, disturbed and utterly exhausted Another great use of simile, ?His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,?(20) suggests that his face is probably covered with blood which is the color symbolizing the devil. A very powerful metaphor is the comparison of painful experiences of the troops to ??vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues.?(24) This metaphor emphasizes that the troops will never forget these horrific experiences. As you can see, Owen has used figurative language so effectively that the reader gets drawn into the poem.

The first stanza opens with Owen using similes and metaphors to describe the soldiers he had fought alongside. The poet describes the soldiers to be “coughing like hags”. This could mean that the soldiers caught a disease whilst fighting. The use of the term “hag” also depicts the soldiers to be older than their actual age. The simile is strange

The theme is captured in the lines “In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.” Those exposed to chlorine gas did in fact often die of asphyxiation. The frankness of this poem was intended to refute the propaganda that at the time was the only information received about the war. The propaganda portrayed war as an act of patriotism, defending one’s country for the greater good. This lack of information often lead to not only the glorification of war and its violence, but has immortalized these events as acts of heroics and bravery. This resulted in ignorance of the mental effects and disorders that returning soldiers often develop during war, such as PTSD. Owen presents an overall antiwar and anti-jingoistic message through its blunt and graphic use of imagery, this is highlighted in the lines “If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues”. This imagery positions the audience to feel horror for what the soldiers are enduring.