Explication of Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est.
Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est discusses a controversy of the perception that people have about war. He does this by titling his poem with a rather settling latin phrase which means "it is sweet and honorable to die for the fatherland," it gives us a false sense of security that this poem is definitely about war but probably about something heroic that someone did in this war, something courageous like giving up your life trying to save someone else's but Owen describes a battle scene and then a horrifying and terrible death which some might say is a glorious way to die for your country.
The poem begins with Owen immediately putting us in the battle and the feeling that that this war has been long and has been hard for those who are marching on. It describes the soldiers as beggars who can't stand up straight and that are sick with coughs but still "trudge" on in the "sludge." Important words are these to the perception that Owen wants us to have as readers, that this war is awful and almost unbearable. Almost unbearable because the men march on even though it seems they are sleep deprived that they sleep as they march, they march with no boots, they have been shot and are bloody and they are tired. The strongest point of this part of the poem is that we get the feeling that the soldiers, even though they trudge on, they don't seem to care if they live or die at this moment. It says that even though they are being bombed at from behind and can hear them coming down at them through the air they turn a deaf ear. You know that this has been an awful war if death seems more appetizing than living.
All of a sudden the troops are surprised with chlorine gas bombs. They fumble around with their gas masks but one soldier isn't fast enough. The contaminated soldier is compared to a fish out of water "floundering" on the ground grasping for something to keep him alive.