Wilfred Owen
- Submitted by: sosdos14
- Views: 1345
- Category: English
- Date Submitted: 07/29/2010 03:21 AM
- Pages: 4
- Report this Essay
Wilfred Owen was a soldier in World War 1, he joined up to seek glory and honour. However he only found destruction, madness and death. The main poem that I have chosen is “Dulce Et Decorum Est” and it is one of Owen’s most famous and influential poems. This poem is also dedicated ironically to Jesse Pope; she was famous for her patriotic poems of war. “Dulce Et Decorum Est” relates to all 5 of Owne’s poems we have studied and shows similar ideas.
Stereotypical idea of a young men is that they have a strong built body and physically and mentally strong. But Owen describes them as “Bent double like old beggars under sack” in the first stanza. The simile “like old beggars” helps us visualise the true state of the soldiers in war. It is further emphasized in the second line “Knock Kneed coughing like hags”. The use of alliteration “Knock Kneed” and the simile “coughing like hags” clearly paints a picture in our minds that these soldiers are no longer fit to fight in war but must continue on.
The related poem “The Futility” is about a soldier dying in the snow. “Until this morning and this snow”. Owen asks a rhetorical question “was it this the clay grew tall” asking were they born just to be sacrificed and killed, why did they bother turn into life if they were to die like this. He sees war as futile, that’ it’s a waste of time and nothing is glorious about a boy dying in a snow. The word “glory” is related to the main poem “Dulce Et Decorum Est”.
The poem “The parable of the old men and the young” has the same idea as “Futility” and “Dulce Et Decorum Est”. The vivid imagery and Owen’s use of metaphor is to describe the situation of the war taken and the cruelty about war that made him writing the poem. Owen used the idea from the bible to appropriate the ending. The quote “Lay not thy hand upon the lad” Owen writes the ending when Abram kills his own son Isaac to describe his anger towards the death caused by selfishness of adults that seeked glory and...
Stereotypical idea of a young men is that they have a strong built body and physically and mentally strong. But Owen describes them as “Bent double like old beggars under sack” in the first stanza. The simile “like old beggars” helps us visualise the true state of the soldiers in war. It is further emphasized in the second line “Knock Kneed coughing like hags”. The use of alliteration “Knock Kneed” and the simile “coughing like hags” clearly paints a picture in our minds that these soldiers are no longer fit to fight in war but must continue on.
The related poem “The Futility” is about a soldier dying in the snow. “Until this morning and this snow”. Owen asks a rhetorical question “was it this the clay grew tall” asking were they born just to be sacrificed and killed, why did they bother turn into life if they were to die like this. He sees war as futile, that’ it’s a waste of time and nothing is glorious about a boy dying in a snow. The word “glory” is related to the main poem “Dulce Et Decorum Est”.
The poem “The parable of the old men and the young” has the same idea as “Futility” and “Dulce Et Decorum Est”. The vivid imagery and Owen’s use of metaphor is to describe the situation of the war taken and the cruelty about war that made him writing the poem. Owen used the idea from the bible to appropriate the ending. The quote “Lay not thy hand upon the lad” Owen writes the ending when Abram kills his own son Isaac to describe his anger towards the death caused by selfishness of adults that seeked glory and...