Dulce Et Decorum Est youtube clip

The youtube clip showed various propaganda posters present at the time of war. These posters described war as adventurus and heroic by using image of soldiers who seemed to look excited. It also introduced emotive words such as fight, at the front, take up the sword of justice, to give impression to the reader positive sense of war. Popular music at the time has been added to the slideshow to enhance this imagery of glory to fight for their country. These does not only glorify the war but persuading young man to fight for their country. In contrast Wilfred Owen described war as completely diffrent to the clip as he defined war as hopeless and there is nothing glorious or adventurus about war. Wilfred Owen’s poem Dulce Et Decorum Est describes this idea to great extent.

From the poem’s title, Dulce Et Decorum Est means in Latin, sweet and glorious which obviously is an irony that Owen used, because throughout the poem he introduced conditions in war such as  horrible conditions in the frontline and trench, gas attack that made soldiers to choke and die and wounded soldiers treated badly. For example when Owen used alliteration, which is quoted ‘All went lame All blind’ clearly shows the consequences of  wound done by both weapon and the gas. This use of alliteration shows how every soldier did not survive any attack thus gives reader a sense of horror.  Owen used metaphors, personal language  and emotive words to convey the horror of the gas attack, for instance he quoted ‘As under a green sea I saw him drowning’. This quote shows the image of soldier who has been gas attacked to get drowned by the green gas which he most likely has been killed. This poem did not only criticized the propaganda, but how people in power brain wash the mass which has been practised since the Roman poet Horace was around. The old lie ‘ Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori’ which means It is sweet and glorious to die for ones country has been introduced in the last stanza of the poem to convey how this irony has been continually used throughout history.

In conclusion there is no truth about dieing for ones country is glorious.  According to Owen, the truth in war involved not adventurus, heroic and glorious but hopeless, sadness and indignation.