The Sinister Side of War in Dulce Et Decorum Est

During World War I, mustard gas killed over 120,000 people in the span of just under four years. Wilfred Owen, a British poet, wrote about the war and was one of the most famous poets of WW1. In Dulce et Decorum Est, certain types of imagery are used to convey emotion about the war. By showing the digression from men to children, and bodily harm, Owen shows how it is not fitting or honorable to die for one’s country.

One of the most important ideas of the poem is the digression from men to children as the poem goes on. In the beginning, Owen describes the soldiers as “[marching] asleep” and “[limping] on” (Owen). The soldiers are starting to experience the change from men to boys, and become more pitiful as they march on. By depicting the marching soldiers in this weakened and almost deathly state, Owen is showing how the soldiers are not really men, and are simply going towards “[their] distant rest” (Owen). Owen also shows this when a fellow soldier yells “Gas! Gas! Quick, boys” (Owen). Even the soldier who yells out in warning does not believe that he or his comrades are men, just confused and fragile boys. When Owen describes the boy that got caught in the gas, he talks about how the soldier died “before [his] helpless sight” (Owen). This contradicts the belief that soldiers are strong and manly and aren’t affected by the death of their fellow soldiers. By describing himself as “helpless” (Owen) as his comrade lunged at him for the last time, Owen is showing how he essentially lost his innocence right then and there. That was the moment, for him, when he went from thinking he was a tough man, to being an innocent boy living a nightmare. In the end, when the soldier has died and his body was in “the wagon that [they] flung him in” (Owen), Owen describes his comrade in his last moments, and described the soldiers “incurable sores” on his “innocent tongue” (Owen), Owen is showing that the soldier that died was essentially reduced to a child in his last moments. He was as innocent as a child, and the only reason he died was because he was probably too tired to put his gas mask on. By showing how the soldiers death was so mentally disturbing, Owen is proving once again that the soldiers death was not fitting or sweet, but a long agony before choking on his own blood. The soldier should’ve been buried in a coffin, instead of being loaded onto a wagon with other dead, and dumped in a mass grave. In the events that Owen depicts in the poem, he shows the progression from men to children using imagery describing the men as they are marching, Owen’s personal experiences, and the soldier that died.

Another way that Owen uses to prove his point is using images of bodily harm to show how it is not fitting to die for ones country. As Owen is describing the soldier that died by gas, he describes the blood that “[comes] gargling from [his] froth corrupted lungs” (Owen). By showing bodily harm from the gas that just hit, Owen is showing the darker side of war, the side that would never be shared when talking to “children ardent for some desperate glory” (Owen). Owen is showing the real nature of war, and warning the reader that joining war is not an honor, but essentially a lottery to see if the soldier will be lucky enough to survive the various ways invented to kill them. Another example of Owen using bodily harm to prove his point is when he describes the eyes of the almost dead soldier, an especially excruciating sight. After the soldier was thrown in the wagon, Owen describes his “white eyes writhing in his face” and “his hanging face” (Owen). The soldier now has to endure the torture and bodily harm that came from the exposure to mustard gas. Using imagery to show images like this, Owen is showing again his point that it is not fitting to die for ones country, and discouraging children to enlist. The poem is also dedicated to Jessie Pope, a British writer that wrote articles of propaganda urging British soldiers to enlist in the Army. By addressing the poem to her, Owen is countering her arguments that war is honorable, and using grotesque images such as soldiers being exposed to deadly gas to back himself up. Using imagery to show bodily harm, including what happens to the soldier, Owen shows how it is not fitting or honorable to die for ones country.

By showing both the digression from men to boys, and using imagery to show bodily harm, Owen is showing the reader the sinister side of war, and the emotional and physical aspects as well. He tells the story of the unlucky soldier who was exposed to gas, and how he was just an innocent child fighting for his life.