Wilfred Owen's Poem 'Dulce Et Decorum Est'

Words: 685
Pages: 3

Analyse how language features were used to revel the attitudes of one or more characters or individuals in the written text(s).

Wilfred Owen wrote the poem "Dulce et Decorum Est" in October 1917 .Owen being a solder. His purpose for writing this poem was to communicate how real war was and horrific it was for the solders. Owen portrays this in language features to describe how the soldiers felt such as similes, metaphors, alliteration and exclamations. Owen uses the language feature simile to show how the soldiers felt and what there attitude towards war is. In stanza one he says that the men are "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks" and "coughing like hags." This creates an image of solders bent over trudging along, they are not standing up or lying down. It shows that these solders were tired and exhausted, gradually trying their best to move on. War has destroyed their youth ,spirit, energy. The war has aged the men both physically and mentally as they are no longer strong young men but weak, poor, old,
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It is something he cant let go of; he is mentally scared for life. Stanza 4 Owen uses irony he says "The old lie: Dulce et decorum est. Pro patria mori." Which is famous Latin words by Roman poet Horace, around 19BC: "it is a sweet and honourable thing to die for ones country" this shows that war is a glorious honour to serve and protect, but war was not glorious they were words coming from a person who had never served in the war. I remember asking my great grandfather, A returned WW2 veteran, I asked where all his scars were and he replied with "All my scars are in the inside" this reinforces the irony and that war is not