He starts at the beginning and the reader progresses as the story does. The other important factor of this poem is that it is formed as a story. The fourth stanza finishes it off by combining everything to prove that war is not the same as the image that society has put out. Because the third stanza is so short, it comes as a surprise. The second stanza creates a more exciting feeling in the reader by speeding it up, adding exclamations, and using smaller words. In the first stanza Owen creates a sad, depressing feel by making the lines longer and the words bigger, “Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through the sludge”. Each stanza has a specific purpose towards the poem and creates a different mood than the previous one. The first stanza has eight lines, the second has six lines, the third has two lines, and the last stanza has twelve lines. “Dulce Et Decorum Est” is broken up into four different stanzas. Although form is a very subtle element, it can help to pack a punch without the reader knowing it is even happening. In “Dulce Et Decorum Est” the author used form to reemphasize the point he is trying to make. The form of a poem can add a lot of character to it. How the speaker used tone and mood in this poem give a very negative sound towards the war. Because no one had given society a true glance at what war looked like, this poem came across as very surprising and sad. The mood could change for every reader, but there was not much room for guessing with “Dulce Et Decorum Est”. He quickly changes the tone by speeding it up, “Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!”. He starts the poem with a depressing tone by talking about what soldiers went through on a day-to-day basis. He uses aggressive words and phrases throughout the entire poem and ends by talking about children. The speaker is angry that society is lying to young children. Because the subject is personal, it would make sense why the tone would come across as very aggressive. This poem is in first person “we cursed through the sludge”, he makes the point of showing that he went through the war, he was not just a bystander. The tone of “Dulce Et Decorum Est” is very depressing and aggressive. He is angry that literature has not given the full picture of the war, and yet it is still encouraged. The speaker is talking to the society who is encouraging their children to enlist in the war. These two elements are very similar in the fact that both are regarding emotions, but the difference is in who is feeling those emotions. The tone and the mood that the speaker portrays in this poem are both very negative. This state of the horror of the war was Owen’s point of view, and this is what he wanted society to see before telling their children that they should die for their country, “Dulce et decorum est/ Pro patria mori”. The soldiers were so worn out that they didn’t even care that bombs and guns were being fired right behind them. Owen uses the whole first stanza just to show that the soldiers had been through so much, that nothing phased them anymore, “Drunk with fatigue deaf even to the hoots/ Of disappointed shells that dropped behind”. Owen uses “Dulce Et Decorum Est” to show some of the hardships soldiers went through every day, “Men marched asleep. This soldier is someone society can look at, praise, and encourage. They did not want to see the pain and death, only the soldiers standing, saluting the flag, and winning the war. Most literature during the early 1900’s only told about what society wanted to see of soldiers. Owen wanted to use this poem to change society’s point of view of the war. In the poem, “Dulce Et Decorum Est” Owen wants to show that the war is much more gruesome than literature has previously depicted. Society only wanted to show the great things about the war, and leave out the day-to-day conflicts. Most literature did not give the day-to-day accounts of the war, instead, they told the bigger story, “Where conventional Great War writing in newspapers, novels, and official histories tended to take up crowds and nations”. Owen was one of the first poets to present a different image of war through his poem “Dulce Et Decorum Est”, as Lutz said, “Generally regarded as the stet poet of World War I, Wilfred Owen broke with many of the literary conventions of war literature in his poetry”. Giving up their lives means that they are giving up time to spend with families, giving up certain freedoms, and sometimes it could even mean giving up mental health. They give up their lives to protect their country. Soldiers deserve the utmost respect, but they deserve it for the right reasons.
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