Wilfred Owen s The Sentry And Dulce Et Decorum Est

Wilfred Owen poems ‘The Sentry’ and ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ contain a myriad of both shocking and realistic war experiences on a microscopic level. Wilfred Owen a company officer talks about his egregious exposure to war and how war contaminates life and existence of humans. In both poems the 1st stanza implies the threats and life in war, which then springboards us to the physical effect of one specific soldier and the thirds stanza he relives the inescapable experience and ends the poem with a bleak, ironic statement. ‘The Sentry’ and ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ have many similarities; they highlight the price paid by soldiers and relentlessly unveil the full scale of war s horrors. There are two types of prices paid by soldiers due to war; one deprives humans of their sanity whereas one consumes the breath which makes us human. In both poems Owen shows us the physical effect of war, Wilfred starts the poems showcasing unendurable stress the men were going through. Appalling pictures are created and expressed through similes and metaphors. Owen’s lexical choices link to the semantic field of the archaic which conveys the atavistic effects of war. The men are compared to old beggars, hags, the once young men have been deprived of their youth and turned into old women, the loss of masculinity express the how exhausting and ruthless war was. The men were barely awake from lack of sleep, they â€Å"marched in sleep† their once smart uniforms resembling â€Å"sacks†. He also expresses howShow MoreRelatedAll Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque Essay1131 Words   |  5 Pagessounds as if he were describing a pack of wolves. Furthermore, when Paul becomes trapped in the middle ground during a skirmish, he realizes he must defend himself. A French soldier jumps into his hole, forc ing Paul to kill him. Paul â€Å"strike[s] madly at home and feel[s] only how the body suddenly convulses† without any thought (Remarque 216). The language employed by Remarque suggests Paul’s behavior is animalistic and brutal. His mad stabs into the body of the Frenchman imply the violent and impersonalRead MoreWilfred Owen1783 Words   |  8 Pagesdescribing physical horror, such as in‘ Dulce et Decorum Est’ or the unseen, mental torment such as in‘ Disabled’. His diverse use of instantly understandable imagery and technique is what makes him the most memorable of the war poets. His poetry evokes more from us than simple disgust and sympathy; issues previously unconsidered are brought to our attention. One of Owen’s talents is to convey his complex messages very proficiently. In‘ Dulce et Decorum Est’–‘ If in some smothering dreams you tooRead MoreAnalysis Of Wilfred Owen s `` Dulce Et Decorum Est ``1256 Wo rds   |  6 PagesWilfred Owen is remembered as one of the greatest poets to capture the war in words. His work was described as â€Å"the finest written by any English poet of the first War and probably the greatest poems about war in our literature† (Lewis 11) despite him only having had 4 poems published in his lifetime, though he did write many more. His poems truly did capture the terror and harsh truth of the hardships the soldiers faced in the trenches everyday during World War I, evident in â€Å"Dulce Et Decorum Est†