Andrew Or,Y9F, 9/5/18
Comparison between Dulce et Decorum Est & Anthem for Doomed Youth
Wilfred Owen is said to be one of the greatest war poets of all time. His poems are still studied up to this day. His poems are based on his first-hand experiences as a soldier in the British army. He is the author of many poems, but he is perhaps most well-known for the poems “Anthem for Doomed Youth” and “Dulce et Decorum Est.” These two poems are arguably the best protest against war, as they both uncover war’s true face in a way different from that of his other poems. Anthem for Doomed Youth is an elegy of some dead soldiers who are not properly buried even though they die for their country. It was written when Wilfred Owen was recovering from shell shock at a hospital. Dulce et Decorum Est concentrates on the suffering of soldiers during WWI on the battlefield. The soldiers are extremely fatigued, returning from battle when a gas attack happens. The title of the poem actually translates to “It is sweet and fitting to die for your poem,” yet the poem contains no words of praise as the title is, in fact, a satire, a manifestation of the disgust and bitterness Wilfred Owen holds for the warmongers. I personally think that Dulce et Decorum est is a better protest against war as it is able to make the horrors of warfare come alive before readers’ eyes with the use of effective language and structure, which make the poem more vivid, informative and captivating.
One of the many ways that make Wilfred Owen’s poems so successful is because of the language used. Dulce et Decorum est develops along three stages – a description of weary and tired soldiers, then their sudden exposure to bombings and a gas attack and finally, the horrific aftermath of the war – all described emphatically with effective literary devices and imagery. In the first paragraph, he says that the soldiers were “bent double like old beggars with heavy sacks” and they were “knock-kneed or physically deformed, coughing like hags”. Using the similes ‘like old beggars’ and ‘coughing like hags’, Wilfred Owen tries to give readers the impression that the soldiers are frail, decrepit and confined and hence induces the convincing image of horrid and terrifying experiences of the war. The word ‘double’ also points to the fact that the soldiers were not only physically but also mentally exhausted. The line “Men marched asleep” creates the strong imagery of soldiers who were dog-tired as if they were asleep and yet they still had to march on. The word “blood-shod” effectively portrays how many of the soldiers lost their boots and had to limp on their blood-shod feet. In the line “Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots/ Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind”, the word “drunk” is a metaphor which reflects the soldiers’ extreme tiredness and trancelike state and the word “deaf” also shows how the soldiers’ senses completely deteriorated- they were so tired that they grew deaf to the sounds of the “hoots” and “Five-Nines” (the calibre shells).
In the second stanza of the poem, a gas attack happens. The second stanza starts off with the words “Gas! GAS! Quick Boys!- An ecstasy of fumbling”, which provides readers with an irony. Surely, the situation was far from being ecstasy. It only describes the picture of how tired and jaded the soldiers were and the violent emotional pain they were in. In the lines “ Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time/ But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime”, the strong imagery of soldiers hastened to ready themselves with masks and helmets, just in time to avoid the gas attack, and there was one soldier still “yelling out and stumbling, floundering like a man on fire or lime (which burns live tissues)” and the term “floundering” is used to describe the clumsiness and helplessness of the soldier, who died right in the front of the poet as he “saw him drowning” under “a green sea”. The metaphor “Green sea” presents how the gas spread rapidly and the word “drowning” is another metaphor not only depicts how the soldier was surrounded by the poison gas but also creates an image of the soldier gasping for oxygen, yet getting none. The repetition of the word ‘green’ in “thick green light” and “a green sea” also enhances the gas attack scene. Al these help paint a gruesome picture in the readers’ mind of how overwhelming the gas attack scene is. The next two lines are Wilfred Owen’s reaction to the death of the soldier. He says, “In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, he plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.” The word “dreams” (in this context) is surely the polar opposite of a dream-it is more like a nightmare. In all his dreams, the same soldier plunged at the poet. Unfortunately, he could do nothing but watch his comrade “guttering, choking and drowning”. The word ‘guttering’ mimics the horrible sound of the soldier coughing helplessly. Readers can feel strongly the sense of helplessness the poet felt at not being able to help his fellow soldier when he succumbed to the gas attack. In the third stanza, Wilfred Owen tries to show the real face of the war to the readers. The word “you” gets the readers involved and makes them feel as if they were there to witness the horrific happenings and feel his agony and ultimately support his protest against the war. Wilfred Owen tells the readers that they could feel the same pity of war if they could follow the wagon that they “flung the soldier’s body in”, or watch the dead soldier’s lifeless “white eyes” in his “smothering dreams”. Expressions like ‘white eyes’, ‘writhing in his face’, ‘hanging face’ and ‘devil’s sick of sin’ are used to express how horrible the dream could be, as shown in the simile “devil’s sick of sin”, which is used to compares to the lifeless face of the soldier and the use of sibilance with ‘face’, ‘devil’s’, ‘sick’ and ‘sin’. Another simile “obscene as cancer” is used to describe how terrifying and devastating it was “the blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs” of the soldier because of the gas. In the final part of the poem, Wilfred Owen clearly calls “Dulce et Decorum est Pro Patria Mori” (“It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country”) an old lie. Even when he maintains that he is not unwilling to sacrifice his life for his country, he simply doesn’t believe in the old conviction advocated by “(his) friend” who encouraged young men to go to with “high zest”. He towards sending and that it is the sweet and fitting thing to do. Needless to say, he didn’t gain any sweet or fitting, worthwhile experience from the war.
Despite the fact that Dulce et Decorum Est is a better protest, that doesn’t mean that Anthem for Doomed Youth isn’t a successful anti-war poem. Anthem for Doomed Youth also uses various literary devices and vivid imagery to create dramatic effects. Some powerful words are located in the first sentence “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?”. Passing bells are rung to announce a death or a funeral, yet the “what” suggests that there was no annunciation of death blossoming amongst the battlefield. Traditionally, bells are played in a funeral, but on the battlefield, the dead are “honoured” by weaponry. “Die as cattle” is a simile, comparing soldiers’ death to cattle being sent to a slaughterhouse. It helps set the tone and the mood for the rest of the poem – The animalistic comparison dehumanizes the soldiers, in the same way that Owen sees the war dehumanizing the soldiers, bringing up imagery of violent and unnecessary slaughter. This also suggests that the soldiers were killed very often, yet there was little to no care for them after their deaths for the country at all. In the first stanza, Wilfred Owen describes the ‘monstrous anger’ of the guns, the ‘stuttering rifles’, and the ‘shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells’. He shows readers a horrible world with chaos and madness. The phrase “stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle” is both an alliteration and an onomatopoeia, mimicking the sound of a gun. In the phrase “monstrous anger’, the poet uses personification to show that the guns are like a great monster chewing up everything in its path, including the soldiers that poured out their blood into shell holes. The last sentence of the stanza “And bugles calling for them from sad shires.” is particularly effectively written. Bugles are a simple wind instrument, typically used by the military. “Sad shires” is a use of personification. Wilfred Owen uses personification to cover another literary technique hidden inside those two words; hyperbole. A shire is an English county, and associating the word “sad” with it implies that everyone in the county was mourning and heartbroken from the loss of their lover or kin. The first stanza concentrates on the battlefield, and the second concentrates upon the reactions of friends and family at home. The quiet of the second stanza and the use of softened imagery brings out in sharp relief the differences between war and normal life, which in reality was normal at all during the war. Wilfred Owen starts off with a rhetorical question: “What candles may be held to speed them all?” The question helps readers develop a sense of sympathy towards those who died for the war and the candles, which are symbols of hope and respect, hopefully, could help the dead speedily on their journey to a possible afterlife. The poems also contain other questions, like ‘Are the soldier’s deaths dignified?” and “Would the soldiers receive a proper burial?” which elicits readers’ sympathy towards the families of the dead who wondered what happened to their loved ones and what their fate was. The line “shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes” contains alliteration which helps the reader focus on this sensitive image. The pale skin of “girls' brows” will metaphorically become “the pall” -the cloth that covers the coffin – and the flowers, traditionally placed at the graveside and around the church, symbolise the contemplative thoughts of the mourners. This imagery helps readers to realise that sadly and ironically that there was no funeral or decent burial for most of the dead soldiers who bravely died for their country. The “drawing down of blinds” is a tradition to mark the loss of those who have passed away and yet it was lacking in this case. Wilfred Owen again uses alliteration – dusk a drawing-down – to conclude that on the battlefield there are no such marks of respect, only the natural fading of the light as another day ends. Religious imagery such as “Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes” and “Would God condone their actions?” are used to show the poets condemn. To conclude, in terms of language, Dulce et Decorum Est is much more powerful and effective in protesting against the war as it is based on real stocktaking, real knowledge and real assessment of a war situation, while Anthem of Doomed Youth focuses mainly on the disrespect for the dead soldiers in the war and the grief suffered by their families and loved ones.
Another reason that Dulce et Decorum Est is so dramatically effective is because of its structure. It contains four stanzas, with different length in the stanzas. In Dulce et Decorum Est, most of the sentences are short in the first stanza. This creates and stores up tension, which gradually increases over time. Suddenly, in the second stanza, the sentence “Gas! Gas! Quick Boys!” gains pace and creates a frenzy atmosphere for the readers. The capitalized word “GAS” and the exclamation marks indicate the panicked feeling the soldiers had in them. In the sentence “fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;” the semicolon demonstrates that the sentence is incomplete, and not all the gas masks were worn in time. The sentence “And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime” suddenly spikes up the tension and suspends the readers. The amount of exclamation marks show that the soldiers were in a completely panicked state as they were caught off guard. Long sentences are used with commas, such as “Knock-Kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge.” The commas link all the sentences together, expressing the fatigue even more greatly. Suddenly, there is a line break. This could signify Wilfred Owen being paralyzed with fear, being too powerless, or is it used to create suspense. On the other hand, Anthem for Doomed Youth is a sonnet and an iambic pentameter with a rhyme scheme ABABCDCD EFFEGG. Like a typical sonnet, there is a shift in the poem, from the battlefield in the first stanza to the quieter, less action-packed world of civilians at home in the second stanza. The effect created by the use of punctuation is not as prominent.
All in all, both the language and structure make Dolce et Decorum est a better protest against the war. Wilfred Owen, being a soldier in the first world war, knows about the horrors of war, and had to find out the hard way. He pours his soul and hard work into the poem, hoping that in the future, we will learn from our mistakes and not let history repeat itself. Dulce et Decorum Est’s language is more sophisticated to me, and its structure and tone convey a stronger and more powerful message because of its effectiveness of the depiction of war. Anthem for Doomed Youth also does this, but not even half as well. This is why I believe that Dulce et Decorum Est is a better protest against the war.