Dulce et Decorum Est

Dulce et Decorum est was written by Wilfred Owen. Wilfred Owen wrote very similarly to Siegfried Sassoon, if not a little bit more detailed in the things he said. The title tells explains what the poem means very well, it is fitting to die for your country, this is a good pointer as you can tell he is being sarcastic by saying that as Owen wasn’t all to enthusiastic about fighting for your country. The poem consists of four stanzas, the first has eight lines, the second has six lines, the third has two lines and the fourth has twelve. The poem is about a young man who has come back from war with serious injuries and is severely traumatised.
The first stanza starts with Owen describing how tired the soldiers were, he described them to be “like old beggars under sacks” meaning they had a hunch on there backs because they were so tired. The next line carries on with saying how tired the soldiers were, saying that they were so tired that they were “knock-kneed”, they were almost falling with tiredness. They through haunting flares to show that the enemy was firing. And they started too walk to there next rest. The men were so tired that they marched asleep, some even with out wearing boots. While they limped on, the blood on their feet became encrusted to their feet. Owen now says they are so tired it is as if they were “drunk with fatigue”, they were deaf even to the shells which he calls “hoots”. He now puts it across that every thing is in a haze of tiredness, even the “Five-Nines” which were the shells are tired.
The next stanza is in a different scene, it is in the trenches and explains how a young man is killed by gas. “Gas, Gas! Quick, boys”, is one of the soldiers calling the other soldiers in their group to run as the enemy is firing gas at them. Here Owen makes it clear how bad some things in the army were as he says “Fitting on the clumsy helmets”. But now comes the twist, one of the soldiers was left behind and was