How Wilfred Owen Presents the Experiences of War in Dulce et Decorum est - Essay Example

How Wilfred Owen Presents the Experiences of War in Dulce et Decorum est “Bent double like old beggars under sacks, knock-kneed, coughing like hags” (Stade & Karen 375) is one of the phrases Wilfred Owen applied, in his poem Dulce et Decorum est, as one of the use of stylistic devices to offer the expression of how solders look and feel at war. World War 1 was full of cruelty and solders fought under very adverse conditions characterized by starvation, disease and death. He has applied the poetic techniques and expressive language that leaves the reader with such feelings like pity.

At the beginning of the poem, he manages to offer a glimpse of the living conditions that leaves the soldiers with untimely age. The present propaganda has been described in the poem, as “the old lie” for the glory of a war is merely a myth. He uses alliteration and punctuation to induce a sound that gives an expression of violence and sorrow (Spurr 26). “We cursed through sludge” is an extract from the poem that he uses to engage the audience and win their trust as it gives an expression that he was actually there.

One of the techniques he uses to induce the solder’s feelings to the audience is the finale usage of an onomatopoeia of ‘trudged’ when he quoted ‘and towards our distance rest begun to trudge’ expressing the slowness and in pace and difficulty of locomotion the solders experience as they moved through the sludge (Spurr 37). “In all my dreams, before my helpless sight”, the poet manages to express how he is haunted by the dreadful images of the dying soldiers and the helplessness he experienced in then.

Synonymous to the word villain, Owen uses “vile” to express to the audience the incurable wounds the solders suffered; “of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues” (Bonokowski 97). Works Cited Bonikowski, Wyatt. Shell Shock and the Modernist Imagination: The Death Drive in Post-World War I British Fiction. Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate, 2013. Print. Spurr, Barry. Wilfred Owen: Hsc Standard English. Glebe, N.S.W: Pascal Press, 2004. Print. Stade, George, and Karen Karbiener. Encyclopedia of British Writers, 1800 to the Present: [volume 2].

New York: Facts On File, 2009. Internet resource.