Dulce Et Decorum Est -...
Transcript of Dulce Et Decorum Est -...
Dulce Et Decorum Est
PURPOSE:
Owen represents the horror of the
battlefield and chemical warfare to
condemn the „old Lie‟ that it is sweet and
honourable to die for your country.
.
STANZA ONE:
The exhausted, dishevelled condition of the
soldiers is described and implicitly
contrasted with the expectations and
assumptions of the soldiers help by
authorities and the public
“Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed”
These introductory lines vividly describe the exhaustion the soldiers encountered while labouring back to the trenches from an attack on the front.
The speaker and his comrades were mostly fit young men, but here we learn that the soldiers are hunched over and hobbling. Making the young men analogous to old beggars sharply contrasts with some wartime propaganda posters that portray spry soldiers in clean uniforms, excited to be fighting.
“we cursed through
sludge,”
The soil of the battlefield
was heavily cut up by
shells, trenches and then
rain turned it all to mud.
“Cursed” is not quite what
one would expect, but
rather a verb of motion.
This clever play shows what
attitude the soldiers had
towards their less than
desirable circumstances.
Till on the haunting
flares …… And towards
our distant rest
The soldiers turn away
from the lights and
noise of war and head back in the direction
of their camp.
These „flares‟ are sent
up to light no-man‟s land so that any
opposing forces can
be spotted — they
hang in the air like
ghosts and remind the
soldiers that those
flares may lead to their
deaths.
And towards our distant
rest began to trudge
The “distant rest” of
oblivion, seems to be
a reference to the
likely deaths of these
soldiers, with death
acting almost a relief
from the horrors of
war.
Men ……..; all blind;
The men are so
exhausted that they‟re
barely conscious enough
to walk. They‟ve lost
boots, so their feet have
gotten cut up and are
covered in bloody scabs.
Their bodies are spent.
“Blind” can refer not only
to the dark night, or to
obstructed or injured
eyes, but to the blindness
of pointlessly marching
on, with no goal
whatsoever but to kill.
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots(4) Of tired, outstripped(5) Five-Nines(6) that dropped behind
Five-Nines refer to the German 15mm, or 5.9" diameter artillery shells used to deliver chlorine gas.
The men are so fatigued and apathetic after suffering so much that they are practically indifferent to the shells behind.
STANZA TWO
Frenzied response to a gas attack
concludes with a description of a soldier‟s
suffering.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!
The author suddenly realizes that the shells which had landed near them didn‟t explode but started letting out poison gas. Capitalizing “GAS” the second time gives the suggestion of urgency to the reader, adding to the severity of the situation.
An ecstasy of fumbling
The words in the second half
of the line — “an ecstasy of
fumbling” — seem more
appropriate to describe an
intimate sexual experience
than to describe war. Under
normal circumstances, these
young men should be having
their first sexual encounters.
Instead, they are fumbling
around with gas masks.
The word „ecstasy‟ could also
refer to the soldiers‟
heightened emotions.
Nowadays, ecstasy suggests
pleasure and there is, as a
result, an oxymoronic quality
to the pleasure of getting on
the gas mask in such a terror-
filled situation. Owen though
may have meant that the
terror, the most heightened of
sensations, has made the
soldier spring into action
Fitting the clumsy helmets
just in time
Gas masks were bulky
and awkward. They still
are.
Now imagine you‟re as
tired as these soldiers
and trying to put one
on so you don‟t die.
But limped on, blood-shod.
All went lame; all blind
Someone‟s mask either
had broken or he hadn‟t
been able to get it on
before starting to
breathe in the gas,
choke, and panic.
“Lime” (also known as
quicklime— its chemical
name is Calcium Oxide)
is a dry chemical
compound that can
burn through flesh like
fire.
Dim, through the misty
panes and thick green
light,
The glass in the goggles
was not exactly clear,
especially after it had
been carried with the
rest of the muddy gear.
As under a green sea, I saw him
drowning.
The man caught without his
gas mask is flailing and
choking from the gas, like
someone who can‟t swim
and has started gulping
water.
Have you ever burned
yourself badly enough that
the blister starts to ooze a bit
of liquid? The same thing
happens when a person
inhales gas. It burns the inside
of their lungs, which release a
mucus to try to stop the
burning. The resulting liquid
accumulation literally drowns
them.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
The speaker is now half talking about the present, half about the past. He is evoking the man who died slowly and painfully in front of him, and also his post-traumatic flashbacks to this moment. The description takes the reader at once to the scene that still haunts the speaker, and likely the poet, who is writing from personal experience.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
our speaker knows we can‟t fully share the horror of battle with him. That‟s part of the point. The best we can do is experience the nightmare at a distance. Such deliberate distancing of the speaker from the “you” creates a large, isolating gap. We just can‟t understand war unless we‟ve “been there”—so we shouldn‟t pretend otherwise.
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
Note the use of alliteration and assonance with the “w” and “i” sounds.
watch the white eyes writhing
The words themselves are contorted and a bit difficult to say, while the vowels almost evoke a cry of pain: “ay, ay, ay.”
His hanging face
“Hanging” has two
meanings: the man looks
miserable emotionally,
and/or he is so infested
with welts and sores
(described three lines
later) that his face is no
longer recognizable.
There is also the idiom “to
stand there with one‟s
bare face hanging out”,
which means “to looks
stupid and helpless”
like a devil's sick of sin;
i.e., like a demon‟s face distorted by the corruptions of sin. May also suggest that even hell itself is sick of the death the youth are experiencing at war.
The implicit comparison is with the initial “glorious” war— the amount of hardship, brutality, and “sin”, was much more than anyone was ready for.
Owen purposely uses alliteration (devil'S Sick of Sin) to force us to hiss through this portion; making us imitate a snake, a symbol for Satan.
If you could hear, ……….. Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues
Owen uses many “disgusting” similes and adjectives in these four lines to convince readers how vile and surreal human destruction is.
In a short moment, the young man ages into a bundle of sores—like cancer running him over.
My friend, you would not tell
with such high zest
To children ardent for some
desperate glory
Wilfred Owen is calling out
propaganda artists and
poets who urged people on
to war. In particular, Jessie
Pope, a patriotic English
poet and journalist, and
Owen Seaman, who wrote
“Pro Patria.” “Friend” here
seems sarcastic, as though
the horror of these
experiences has instilled the
speaker with deep cynicism.