Dulce Est Decorum

What it’s about/main idea/message How it is shown/ techniques

First Verse describes the state of the men as they return from a typical day on the front. It is describing trench warfare and the way men who left young and fit were soon turned into old men, exhausted and sick.	Simile “ bent double like old beggars under sacks” – The men once young are now physically exhausted and cannot walk upright. Alliteration “Knock kneed” –Makes us hear the sound of their knees knocking together, suggests fear and exhaustion. Simile “ Coughing like hags” Suggests the men are physically sick and again aged by the experience. Hyperbole “ Men marched asleep..all went lame, all blind.” An exaggeration but one that makes us see that the exhaustion affected almost all of them. Metaphor “Drunk with fatigue” Suggests a visual image of the men having difficulty in walking, they are stumbling as if they are drunk. Onomatopoeaia “Hoots” Brings the sound of the shells dropping to us and adds to the vivid sense of being there and being informed by an onlooker.
Verse Two describes a gas attack from first hand and how one of the soldiers can’t get away and so suffers as his friends watch.	Monosyllabic words “Gas, gas, quick boys! ´The short sharp words increase the pace and give a sense of urgency to the poem which suggests the desperation of the soldiers faced with the gas attack. Simile “ Dim… as if under a green sea, I saw him drowning.” A vivid metaphorical description of the man drowning in the dissolved lungs as they are melted by the inhalation of the gas. Hyperbole ´In all my dreams “ Owen describes the impact on him as an onlooker. It has been so horrifying he can’t ever forget it.
Verse three Owen describes how he wants the men at home who have little idea of just how horrific it all is to see and then stop promoting war as a glorious and noble thing to participate in. As with so many of his poems the message comes at the end.	Alliteration “watch the white eyes writhing” The repeated sound of the W suggests a drawing out of the time and therefore an intensifying of the horror. Simile “ Hanging face like a devil’s sick of sin” Devils are expected to like sin and so this is desperately horrible. The man’s face is drawn open grasping for air and looking hideous. Vivid and makes us feel we are a part of the horror. Onomatopoeaia “ Gargling” The word describes the sound of the blood as it collects in the throat of the dying man and he tries to breathe through it again makes it vivid and realistic. Simile “ Obscene as cancer” Cancer in those days was incurable and so it was a horrific disease. Owen is trying to give us a comparison that will make it clear how awful it was. Irony “My friend” The men Owen is talking to are not friends . they are the men who send the young men to their deaths.