The rich imagery in ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’, is a major reason why the poem is so powerful. In the first line, “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,” readers can see the weariness of the soldiers, trudging tiredly on the war ground. Also, by comparing them to beggars, the soldiers were probably very dirty after fighting for so long. Think of a soldier staying in a battlefield, their uniforms, their faces will most likely be covered with dust, grime, or even blood. In the second line of the poem, it says that the soldiers were “coughing like hags”.
To understand this line, we first have to understand the meaning of a hag. A hag, in ancient folklore, is something like a witch and has a rather awful scratchy voice. To cough like a hag in this case, shows that the soldiers are coughing heavily. In other words, it’s probably the result of a soldier staying in an unhealthy, probably dusty environment for too long that their health starts to deteriorate. For the first two lines of this poem, it gives readers an image that the soldiers are old and perhaps have been fighting for many years.
It is ironic, because those who went to war, like Owen himself are young and healthy, but during the course of war, they aged. It also contrasts with the pictures of handsome, upright soldiers so much used in propagandas. In the twelfth line, after being attacked by the gas bomb, the persona sees another soldier “flound’ring like a man in fire or lime”. The gas bomb being used is mustard gas. This is a substance used in chemical warfare. It reacts with water in the lungs to form a corrosive chemical which destroys the lungs. The man who flounders is too late in putting on his mask.
The Essay on Paper Analysis on the Poem Dulce Et Decorum Est
... with fatigue” the feeling the soldier were having due to mustard gas effect Alliteration: “Knock-kneed coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge.” create ... their air supply was cut-off. Line 17-24 This section of the poem describes a soldier with post-traumatic stress would think. ...
Owen describes the symptoms shown by this man as the poison slowly kills him later in stanza four. Death caused by a gas bomb is painful, as we can see from line 12, the soldier is suffering as if he’s being burnt by fire or lime (a white chalky substance which can burn live tissue) as he inhales the gas. In lines 13-14. “Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light / As under a green sea. I saw him drowning. ” This is yet another simile: The thick greenish glass of the gas mask, and the greenish fumes of the gas make the narrator feel that he is viewing an underwater scene.
An interesting point about the imagery used throughout the poem is that they can be separated into four different groups: the first group gives readers images of tiredness, sleep, dreams, and a nightmarish world, by using phrases like “Men marched asleep”,” Drunk with fatigue”, “In all my dreams”, “If in some smothering dreams”. The second group is the idea of the sea and drowning through phrases like “Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light / As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. “He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. ”, “gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs”. The third group shows loss of coordination, with phrases such as “Bent double”, “Knock kneed”, “Drunk with fatigue”, “fumbling”, “clumsy”, “stumbling”, “flound’ring”, and “writhing”. The last group depicts the loss of the ability to use the senses, with phrases like “turned our backs”, “marched asleep”, “all blind”, “and deaf even to the hoots ”,”my helpless sight”.
