19 pages • 38 minutes read
Wilfred OwenDulce et Decorum est
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1920A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Horrors of Warfare
Content Warning: The section features references to and descriptions of war and its effects on the human body, physical descriptions of the effects of chemical warfare, and discussions of post-traumatic stress disorder.
In 1917, much of the British populace on the home front was still unaware of the physical horror that occurred on the battlefield. Some didn’t want to hear about what modern warfare meant for the young men who served, but much of the news they received was abstract. Many pro-war writers focused on the nobleness of the British cause, ignoring the millions of men who were being maimed or worse. “Dulce et Decorum Est” was one of the first poems to use stark physical imagery as a wake-up call.
Even before the gas attack, the soldiers are physically brutalized, “[b]ent double” (Line 1) and “[k]nock-kneed” (Line 2). They tromp through “sludge” (Line 2), many bootless because of the rough terrain, exposing their skin to infection and damage. The trench boot, a much sturdier boot, wouldn’t be invented until after the poem takes place. As the poem begins, the reader has no idea how long the men have seen battle—hours, days, weeks, months, or years—but they are so exhausted they are “deaf even to the […] / […] gas-shells dropping” (Lines 7-8) and looking for “distant rest” (Line 4).
The gas attack is brutal for its victim and for those who live in constant terror of not getting their gas masks on “just in time” (Line 10). To illustrate why that fear existed, the speaker relays how horrifying the man’s death is. He chokes on the chlorine as the water in his lungs turns to acid, causing him to drown on dry land. The horror is intensified by the eerie green color of the gas and the monster-like gas masks that cover the whole head, offering the observers a strange, “[d]im” (Line 13) view through the condensation on the lenses. This gives the incident a deliberately otherworldly and nightmarish atmosphere.
This ghoulishness is exacerbated by the descriptions in the fourth stanza, which explains how terrible the damage to the body is. The man’s eyes are “white” (Line 19), perhaps because the gas has clouded his corneas or because they have rolled up into his head. They “writh[e]” (Line 19) in his face, which hangs “like a devil’s sick of sin” (Line 20). Owen’s speaker doesn’t shy away from the man’s disturbing visage or the blood that comes up from the “froth-corrupted lungs” (Line 22). He describes the “vile, incurable sores” (Line 24) as a “bitter […] cud” (Line 23) and notes the whole thing is “[o]bscene” (Line 23).
By contrast, Rupert Brooke’s soldier in “The Soldier” is described as buried and astonishingly peaceful, as:
dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home” (Brooke, Rupert. “The Soldier.”
1915. Poetry Foundation. Lines 5-8).
Descriptions like these drove Owen’s poetic mission. As he powerfully noted, his work was not “about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War. Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity” (See: Further Reading & Resources). This is clear in “Dulce et Decorum Est” as the speaker refuses to shy away from reality.
Giving Voice to the Voiceless
Describing the fallen soldier, the speaker in “Dulce et Decorum Est,” notes that his damaged lungs are as “[o]bscene as cancer” (Line 23). He then goes into a further description, noting, they are “bitter as the cud / Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues” (Lines 23-24). This description is particularly visceral, conjuring images of a blistered tongue and crusted wounds. While this is obviously effective in showing the damage of the gas on the dying man, it also serves to focus the audience on the mouth and the cessation of the voice.
“Dulce et Decorum Est” is a poem about who is allowed to speak, which voice is to be heard. While the culture is dominated by “[t]he old Lie” (Line 27) as spoken first by Horace, and then perpetuated by propagandists, the soldier’s voice is muted. The only words given to clarify the war experience are of the gas warning. Mostly, the sounds the men make are guttural and unspecified. They are “coughing like hags” (Line 2) and “curs[e] through sludge” (Line 2). When the attack happens, there is unspecified “yelling” (Line 11) from the affected man but this is quickly reduced to “guttering, choking” (Line 16), hoarse nonverbal sounds. In his death throes, this continues as “blood / [comes] gargling” (Line 22) from him.
In contrast, the speaker’s “friend” (Line 25), whom he views with distaste, is comfortable with “[t]he old Lie” (Line 27) and shares it “with such high zest” (Line 25). This person’s audience is made up of “children ardent for some desperate glory” (Line 26). The youth here might very well grow up to parrot the “friend” (Line 25), and their “innocent tongues” (Line 24) might be susceptible to “vile, incurable sores” (Line 24) forming a “bitter […] cud” (Line 23) in their mouths as they turn into adults. Here, the speaker urges the audience to listen to his voice instead, which he uses to speak for the men who cannot because they are either dead or damaged by war.
Coping with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
When Owen went to Craiglockhart War Hospital to be treated for shell shock in 1917, he was treated by Dr. Arthur Brock. Shell shock, or wartime post-traumatic stress disorder, is a condition that begins when someone experiences a terrifying event, particularly during war. Symptoms might include flashbacks, nightmares, severe anxiety, and uncontrollable thoughts about the event, even while the person is currently in a safe location. Brock encouraged Owen to process his shell shock through writing. When Siegfried Sassoon arrived at Craiglockhart, too, he befriended Owen and the two discussed the benefits of writing their truth about their own and fellow patients’ war experiences.
Although the focus of “Dulce et Decorum Est” centers on the dying soldier, it is important to note it is a story of two men. The second trauma occurs to the speaker who witnessed the events, and as a result, experiences post-traumatic stress. Serving in the war, both men are subject to unpredictable outcomes and countless dangers. Loss of life in World War I was a daily occurrence. Continually fighting for one’s life constitutes repeated, terrifying encounters. When the speaker then witnesses his fellow soldier suffocate during a gas attack, he experiences shock, which narrows his focus down to the man’s death, creating a trigger for him.
In the poem, the speaker has physically survived the war, but he relives the gas attack over and over. The common symptoms are visible in the speaker’s key statement about his feelings after the event: “In all my dreams before my helpless sight, / [The soldier] plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning” (Lines 15-16). Here, in nightmares, he experiences repeated flashbacks to the event, which spiral into uncontrollable, or “helpless” (Line 15), thought patterns. The “at me” (Line 16) is telling as this shows that while the tragedy took the life of his comrade, it also left him with the anxiety of constantly reliving the attack and not being able to do anything to help either of them.
His anger at those who perpetuate “[t]he old Lie” (27) makes sense as they cannot understand what his fellow soldier went through, nor the consequences for himself as the witness. Owen’s speaker can only imagine one atonement for the soldier’s arbitrary death. He asks those who think of war as glorious to engage in a sympathetic exercise. In their imagination, he hopes they “could pace” (Line 17) behind the man as his death rattle begins. Observing the man’s agony, perhaps they would stop engaging in war, or at least exalting the glory of battle. In this way, perhaps the “smothering dreams” (Line 17) that traumatize the speaker can be put to rest as well.
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