Dulce et Decorum Est

Question 1

Form

Answer 1

Iambic pentameter with some exceptions

ABAB rhyme scheme- relentlessness of suffering and inevitability of war.

Enjambement and caesura create a disjointed rhythm and a varying pace, war is unreliable, you never know when your whole world will be broken

Irregular stanza length and metre add to the sense of uncertainty- long stanza length- they want to get as much description in as possible, as any day could their last

Caesura show the slow pace of walking

Complex used to show vivid memories, panic at helplessness, PTSD

Repetition and exclamatory phrases change the pace, showing how quickly ones life can end

Question 2

Structure

Answer 2

Describing soldiers walking
Sudden gas attack
Back to present
The story of the faceless soldier

Memory into current affect of the memory. Severe tone turns panicked and then ironic at the end

‘In all my dreams’ separated but still conforming to stanza 2 rhyme means that he is trying to be the same but he is irrevocably changed. Also years has passed but he still sees this thing

Last line ends abruptly - as it is possible for every soldier’s life to. Insinuation that every soldiers life ends as soon as they believed that old Lie and joined the war.

Question 3

Language

Answer 3

Brutal reality

Does not glorify war

Question 4

Like old beggars
Knock kneed
Coughing like hags
All went lame;all blind;

Answer 4

Simile
Subverts expectations - not patriotic heroes

Repetition of ‘all’ - there is no exception, war as a concept breaks everything

Question 5

Haunting flares

Answer 5

Visual imagery

Question 6

Towards our distant rest began to trudge

Answer 6

Death?

Question 7

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!

Answer 7

Direct speech shocks and involves the audience , showing frenzy

Question 8

Clumsy helmets

Answer 8

Political

Supposed to be life-saving

Question 9

flound’ring like a man in fire or lime

Answer 9

Horrific simile

Question 10

under a green sea I saw him drowning

Answer 10

metaphor -> nature is killing him. Human nature? Greed? It is the nature of war for people to die horrific deaths, but it still always happens.

Colour imagery shows evil and sickness and death and poison

Question 11

guttering, choking, drowning

Answer 11

Tricolon, increasing desperation

Participles don’t indicate a tense, show how he still sees it and still fears it- the actions and fear are still immediate to him

Question 12

watch the white eyes writhing in his face

Answer 12

Alliteration emphasises the pain of the soldier and also the helplessness

Question 13

Like a devils sick of sin

Answer 13

The devil is sick of sin -> his entire purpose. Emphasises just how morally disgusting war is and how much death there really was

Also dehumanises the soldiers -> war has caused them to lose their humanity

Question 14

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud, of vile incurable sores on innocent tongues

Answer 14

Obscene similes intensify suffering

‘Obscene’ - no-one should suffer it
Bitter suggests futility

Question 15

Realistic images of war

Answer 15

Owen doesn’t attempt to glorify war, he’s condemning it

Question 16

Bent double

Knock-kneed

Answer 16

Broken imagery

They have been snapped by war; morally too?

Alliteration shows their deformity, the fragility and disjointedness with which they walk

Question 17

Similes

Answer 17

‘Like old beggars’

Old-> loss of youth and innocence
Beggars -> begging to be free, begging not to have ever done it in the first place. Begging is illegal, makes the state seem cold towards their situation

Question 18

An ecstasy of fumbling

Answer 18

Ecstasy normally has connotations of excitement - here its fear and panic

Also the drug- shows how they’re not themselves, war has changed them mentally

‘Fumbling’ and ‘clumsy’ shows how ill prepared they were, blames the state

Question 19

Froth corrupted lungs

Answer 19

His life has been stolen from him by something who is just using him as a pawn for their own gain and doesn’t care

Question 20

Aural imagery

Answer 20

‘If you could hear’ -> directly appeals to us but by not explicitly describing, Owen forces us to imagine the sounds, deeply harrowing

Question 21

Repetition of drowning

Answer 21

It’s used to rhyme with itself - it’s the only thing the author can think of , he can’t move on

They are both drowning

Question 22

High zest

Answer 22

Ironic tone

Disdainful

Question 23

Use of Latin

Answer 23

Gives the poem traditional tone -> he is confused at how how dying is considered traditional and glorified. Exemplifies that war has always been around, always will, constant, so much death

People don’t fully understand the price they pay for the glory

Question 24

Lie

Answer 24

It is well established

It is so heinous it deserves its own capital

Question 25

Innocent
Children
Friend

Answer 25

All used at the end subvert the harrowing descriptions we have just been bombarded with, making them even more visceral as we are forced to remember that these are innocent children who have been destroyed

The fact he’s still generous enough to call us his friend, humanises him. No human should suffer this.

Question 26

Drunk with fatigue

Answer 26

Metaphors show inability to function properly

It has played with them mentally, they are not the same person, more morally lax -> killers