Dulce Et Decorum Est

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Wilfred Owed was killed by enemy machine gun fire as he tried to get his company across the Sambre Canal (Lane 167). The poem tells of a trip that Owen and his platoon of exhausted soldiers had while they were painfully making their way back to base after a harrowing time at the battle front when a gas shell was fired at them. As a result of this, a soldier in his platoon was fatally gassed. Owen has arranged the poem in three sections, each dealing with a different stage of this experience. He makes use of a simple, regular rhyme scheme, which makes the poem sound almost like a child's poem or nursery rhyme. 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 ...

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the word "ecstasy"(9) being used to give us the impression of the complete, all consuming panic which the soldiers feel when they notice the gas shells. This is effective because it is a complete contrast to the image of the soldiers before the shell, at first they were trudging on, "drunk with fatigue"(7), but are suddenly forced into an "ecstasy of fumbling"(9) by the falling of the gas shell. The description of the gas masks as "clumsy helmets"(10) tells us that the equipment given to the soldiers is heavy and substandard. Owen then describes one member of the platoon who was not quick enough in fitting his mask, and is now yelling out in pain ...

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