English

ESSAY

All texts reflect the context in which they are composed during wartime, they deal with the issues and concerns of the armies in whom are involved in major conflict of World War 1. Wilfred Owen was a World War 1 British poem in whom was actively involved in t eh war as an officer in the British army. Owen underlines the horrors of trench warfare and the gas attacks during World War 1 in his poem “dulce et decorum est”, and in “Anthem for doomed youth” Owen depicts the different noises that travel throughout the battle field. In both poems Owen conveys that war is horrendous and a waste of lives. Owen seeks to erase the myth of war being a glorious event that many people believed at that period of time.

In “Dulce et Decorum Est” Owen reveals the horrors of trench warfare and gas attacks form an ordinary soldier’s perspective. Wilfred Owen metaphorically describes the soldiers as “drunk with fatigue”, where the metaphor informs us about the state of the soldiers as they marched half asleep towards their trenches which they called home. Wilfred Owen uses repetition and exclamation marks to emphasise “Gas! Gas!” and highlights the dangers of mustard gas marking out the urgency in which they must get their gas m asks on, in order to stay alive.

The last stanza of the poem emphasises the significance of the final line, “Dulce et Decorum est pro patrina man”. This expression mirrors the context of the poem where society at that time believed that dying for one’s country is sweet and honourable, yet this is a lie as shown through Wilfred Owen’s poem. “Bitter as cud of vile”, “like a devil sick of sin”, this truly states the conditions of the soldiers, leaving the soldiers in a critical and enduring an unbearable amount of pain due to the trails of World War 1, which is expressed through a simile. This enhances the knowledge of trench warfare preaching to us that it is not sweet and honourable to die for one’s country, but a waste of life and a position that...