Wilfred Owen wrote the stirring and heartbreaking poem "Dulce et Decorum Est" during World

War I. The poem, which is an anti-war protest, paints a terrible and graphic picture of the
miseries of war. Around the time Owen composed the poem, there was a lot of propaganda
being propagated about how honorable and patriotic war is. This propaganda portrayed war as
a noble and heroic enterprise while frequently romanticizing it. Yet Owen, who saw the reality
of war directly, was driven to demonstrate the terrible cost of conflict.
The troops are depicted as being "bent double, like old beggars beneath sacks" and "coughing
like hags" in the poem's first line. These descriptions illustrate the toll that war has had on the
soldiers' bodies and minds. The picture that Owen employs is quite powerful because it conveys
a physical feeling of the anguish that the troops go through. The first verse establishes the tone
for the remainder of the poem, which is replete with violent descriptions of the atrocities of
war.
The subject of the second stanza is a gas assault, a novel and terrible weapon utilized in World
War I.
As he highlights the troops' fear and uncertainty as they attempt to put on their gas masks,
Owen narrates the onslaught in graphic detail. The "green glow" that the gas emits and the
"misty panes" of the gas masks are both described by him. These specifics help to paint a clear
and unsettling picture of the gas assault.
Owen questions the idea that war is noble and heroic in the third stanza as he focuses on the
reader. Imagine the horrifying image of a soldier suffering from a gas attack, with "white
eyeballs writhing in his face" and "blood gurgling from his froth-corrupted lungs," the author
urges the reader to picture.
You is a particularly powerful second-person pronoun choice because it encourages the reader
to acknowledge the brutality of war.
The poem's concluding verse, in which Owen invites the reader to dispel "the ancient Lie" that
it is "dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" (it is pleasant and proper to die for one's country), is
particularly potent. This saying was a well-known catchphrase used to inspire young men to join
the military and to foster a sense of patriotism. Owen, however, believes that this adage is a
fabrication meant to hide the genuine horrors of war.
He ends the poem with the heartbreaking description of a soldier drowning "like under a green
sea." Because of the way it emphasizes the senselessness and violence of war, this image is very
potent.
To sum up, the potent anti-war poetry "Dulce et Decorum est" questions the idealized
perception of combat that was widespread during World War I. To illustrate the hardships of
war and to refute the notion that dying for one's nation is honorable and heroic, Owen used
vivid imagery and gruesome information. The poem serves as a potent reminder of the real
price of war and the necessity of challenging the myths that support it.