Using the Poems Dulce et Decorum Est and Disabled by Wilfred Owen - Essay Example

?Explain How Far Wilfred Owen Challenges the Notion that it is Sweet and Noble to Die For Your Country Using The Poems "Dulce et Decorum est" and "Disabled" War poems have been quite popular in the world of literature especially in the context of the First and Second World War. Many poets have glorified the soldiers and their delegation but some like Wilfred Owen brings out the real picture and the truth behind all the glorious deeds. He condemns the call for war and the glorification of the same and highlights the tragic fate of the soldiers on their way to fulfill the goals of war. Even after a war ends the violent and troubling memories keep haunting a soldier’s mind. Sometimes when the soldier becomes physically disabled he is unable to carry out the normal activities of life and to such a man what remains are only the memories with which he has to live throughout. When the young children in their schools are told how noble it is to fight for one’s land and people, it might sound really righteous but the truths which unfold as one takes a closer look at the consequences of war especially on the lives of those noble doers, one is bound to be discouraged and all motivations in favor of warfare seem meaningless in front of sheer humanity. He draws out visual images in some of his poems, where the physical, and mental suffering of the troops are vividly described. In the war poems, ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ and ‘Disabled’ he challenges the notion that dying for one’s country is sweet and noble. The poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ describes just another day in the World War I when the soldiers are marching towards their place of rest but at that very moment gas bombs begin to drop around them. They hurry for their masks and weapons but some of the ravaged bodies fail to save themselves from the attack. The author writes in a personal tone and tells the readers what he witnesses as vividly as possible with frequent use of similes –“But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,/ And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime” (Owen, line9). He focuses the description now on a single person who dies in the attack and this vision continuously haunts him in his dreams later on. He gradually shifts from first person to third person and then to second person in his address. Towards the end the poet conveys to the people at home their experience of violence and distress and wishes that they could witness the same. At the very beginning he stressed upon the very appearance of the people marching towards their place of rest. He does not address the men as soldiers or warriors; rather he compares them to old beggars and hags. He even uses the metaphoric comparison between their walk and the term ‘cursed’ which he uses to describe the miserable conditions as they march through the muddle trenches. The experience seemed to have them under some kind of a curse. The poet at times uses the technique of creating a caesura or a pause in a line of the poem in order to signify the realism precisely. The language is brief and curt as he mentions ‘Men marched asleep’ (Owen,line4). This sentence makes the men look like ghost figures walking in the dark. They are so exhausted that they almost are falling asleep. The poet uses alliterations I the form of repeated words beginning with ‘l’ – “Many had lost their boots/But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind” (Owen, line4). The words indicate they were covered in blood and therefore the war has enveloped their physical and mental forms. The idea here is to put forth the dragging effect on the readers just as the fatigued soldiers dragged themselves towards the tent. He changes drastically the motion by using brief lines: “Five-nines/that dropped behind. Gas!/Gas! Quick boys!”(Owen, line7), which generates the effect of fast action amidst the slow movements. Suddenly there seems to be a rush for safety. The fear struck cries and bombs falling all around leads to the environment, which brings on merciless deaths that render a stomach curling vision. The poet beseeches the readers and the other common people to think or imagine the vision of the dying man he has seen – “If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood/ Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,/Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud” (Owen, line12). The poet here presumes that the people sitting back at home do not realize the real picture on the fields and what the soldiers have to deal with. He uses a simile again while describing the dying man as he comes in his nightmare – “His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin” (Owen, line12). The phrase ‘a devil’s sick of sin’ indicates the sinful deeds that a soldier is most obliged to commit on the battlefield by killing several other human beings merely guided by territorial differences. The soldier might be tired of killing but the duty of his job compels him to commit more such sins. A few lines after that he refers to the innocent tongue of the dying men, thus referring to the fact that a soldier is merely bound by his duty to kill and hence is innocent. This generates even stronger sympathy towards the dying man and then he jumps to the moral of this narration – “My friend, you would not tell with such high zest/To children ardent/ for some desperate glory, The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori” (Owen, lines13-15). The last three words mean ‘To die for your country’ and the first preceding four words mean ‘it is sweet and noble’. He denotes this to be a lie and forbids the readers from teaching the young children such a theory because in practice the scenario is somewhat opposite when one thinks in terms of what becomes of the soldiers. To be rewarded for the deeds in heaven is a far-fetched and unproven notion, what appears to the naked eye is the truth that the poet tries to convey to those who praise the position and deeds of a soldier. The other poem ‘Disabled’ reflects the recollections and current situation faced by a young soldier stuck in his wheelchair as he has lost his lower limbs. He sits, waiting for the dark and this scenario depicted in the first lines holds an implied meaning. Previously he was a hero, which he is no more after losing his limbs. The bright prospects that young age promises are not for him anymore. All he has before himself is the darkness to be encountered. He could hear the boys playing in the park and this make him recollect his childhood but these sounds bring sadness now as he has practically lost his youth to the war. The poet reveals categorically the disarrayed life of the young boy through the similar arrangement of the seven verses. During this time of the year he used to socialize with friends and there were lovely women around him always. This was all before he parted with his knees, that is, he signed up for the war, which turned him into a cripple. He could never have the company of beautiful girls and taste their sensuality like the typical young man does – “Now he will never feel again how slim/Girls’ waists are, or how warm their subtle hands./ All of them touch him like some queer disease” (Owen, lines11-13). He recollects the memories of an artist who had fallen for him owing to his young looks but he once again make sit clear that he does not look the same now – “There was an artist silly for his face,/ For it was younger than his youth, last year./ Now, he is old; his back will never brace;/He's lost his colour very far from here”(Owen, lines14-17). The lines also imply that the change in his physical form was only a year old and he looked much younger the previous year than he looks at present. The poet here concentrates closely at the young man’s consciousness about what changes the war has brought to his physical and psychological set up. The people around him have also changed their approach towards him who is stranded in the chair. He mentions here that the boy has lost all his color, which means he lost a lot of blood at the war after losing his legs. All the charms have drained and he looks older than his years with a face, which is marked by the hardships of war. The young soldier’s nostalgia centers on his decision to join the war. He ponders what made him sign up as a soldier. Whether it was to show off to his female admirer or because of the very charm that the idea of being in a war held for him as a teenager, he could not exactly remember. It might have been because of getting drunk. At that point of time, the jeweled daggers on the kilts (the uniform of Scottish troops) and the idea of blood shed held an extraordinary appeal to him and especially during a battle it came more as an honor. He was in a football team at that time and his enlistment falsely listed his age as nineteen without asking him though he was much younger then. In fact there was no need of proving his ability before the recruitment team and he was directly signed up. The only things that appealed to him about the war were his uniform and the treatment as a Scottish soldier that he consequently received. It was all about ‘Esprit de corps’ or the reverence for the dignity and welfare of a military group and without delay “he was drafted out with drums and cheers” (Owen, line35). He had no idea about the war politics or about the characteristics of nations like Germany and Austria. This shows how his innocence was tampered or exploited just like many other teenagers who get to see only the brighter sides of being a part of war and not the mundane truth. When he returned home, there were not many to welcome him back other than one old man who thanked him. He was perhaps a soldier in his young age too. Currently he was stuck at the war hospitals where he had to lie and wait for other people’s mercy and assistance. He is also sad at the fact that he did not get women’s attention the way he used to get before and the female eyes wandered over to the “strong men that were whole” (Owen, line44). He was waiting to be put in bed. After being released from the hospital he would be under monthly check ups for his disability. He is also apparently depressed by the fact that no more a woman shall love him. The last lines also show his helpless state where for the basic things in daily life he has to depend on others. It is a sheer irony that a man who defended his nation and took the safety of his countrymen in his hand now has to be at their mercy and sit helplessly waiting for some compassion. Therefore both the poems of Wilfred Owen show the truth behind the noble notion about a war. Wilfred Owen hereby challenges the notion that it is sweet and noble to die for your country. Taking a glance at the life of the young disabled soldier and the experience of the narrator who witnessed men dying the obscene death in front of his eyes, one might realize that it is important to show the children the real picture instead of bringing forth merely the bright notion and the intangible concept of nobility for which someone can be rewarded only after death. People at home often do not have the real picture and the recruitment officers base their selections on lies in cases of emergencies. They tap the determination and enthusiasm of young blood to defend the country whose men might tend to forget the soldiers after return years later. The experiences of a soldier are also troublesome at times and become unbearable to the one who has seen his people dying in war. The burden is both physical as well as psychological for a soldier and a question about transparency might arise here. However if the fate of a soldier is realistically presented before the public it is less likely that people will voluntarily sign up for the troop. Hence the final and ultimate solution lies in world peace and the poet tries to highlight this worldview regarding war and peace. Works Cited Owen, Wilfred, “Disabled”, February 21, 2011 from: http://europeanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/blowendisabled.htm Owen, Wilfred, “DULCE ET DECORUM EST”, February 21, 2011 from: http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen1.html Read More