Poetry Analysis - Dulce Et Decorum Est

Knock-Kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Alliteration of the word Knock-Kneed harsh staccato to echo the harsh mood. Another simile can be noticed in line 2, like hags Owen referred the soldiers as hags, which means old ugly ladies. From this simile, audience can take note of that the soldiers have lost their masculinity, youth and health. By using the collective personal pronoun we, Owen is lumping the readers / audience with these soldiers, creating a personal attachment to the readers through the word we. Perhaps, Owen wanted to directly address to the audience, who were deceived by the propaganda at the period of time. He wanted to bring a realistic image of the soldiers to those, who have been believing that being a soldier is a symbol of bravery, courage and masculinity. This leaves a shocking effect over the audience, as what they have been believing for a long period of time turned out to be a horrible lie. The realistic images from Owens perspective leaves a great impact on the peoples shift of paradigm on war and thus evoke condemnation towards the propagandist and government, who spreaded out the lies to encourage young men to sacrifice their lives for the fight of the country. The stanza ends with the repetition of the harsh t sound. towards our distant rest began to trudge The soldiers are not moving energetically or bravely as they should be, not even moving with a particular purpose, instead the repetition of t sounds indicates that the soldiers are exhausted from the endless torture. .
             The tragic images of the soldiers continue in the second stanza endlessly like how the soldiers endlessly march. The phrase all went lame; all blind. is a key phrase to analyse. word lame means one is disabled in some way, helpless or cant move away and the word blind perhaps be suggesting that the soldiers became blind from the injuries from the war. However, in fact, being able to sense the use of ironic tone in this phrase by owen, the word all maybe is not just talking about the soldiers.