Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
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.
____________________________________________________________________________________
“Dulce et Decorum Est,” which means “it is sweet and honorable,” refers to public opinion about self-sacrifice during World War I. Wilfred Owen, a British soldier who died a week before the armistice in 1918, wrote this poem contradicting the popular notion that dying in battle is righteous (Wikipedia). Owen at first entered the war in 1915 enthusiastic about his service; however, two horrific events changed his outlook on the war drastically. He suffered what is known as “shell shock” from having a trench mortar blow him into the air, causing him to land in corpses. He was also trapped German dugout for days, which traumatized him as well (Wikipedia and BBC). While recovering from shell shock at Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburg, Owen learned to channel his horrific war experiences into poetry (BBC). Soldiers who fought in World War I like Owen had to cope with trauma from conditions that were much more severe than those of previous wars. This is because the First World War was the debut of several technological advances that made fighting even more miserable; shell explosives, new artillery, and gruesome trenches produced a terrible war that led to a crisis in faith for many soldiers (Duiker 632).
This poem uses several sensory images to portray what war is really like for soldiers—it doesn’t give a romantic vision of gallantry and martyrdom. Instead, Owen talks about the “hoots,” or the sounds of shells flying in the air, that deafened the men. The soldiers “cough[ed] like hags,” which likens them to old women rather than the strong young men they were supposed to be. Though the “misty panes” of his gas-mask’s window, the speaker sees his friend drowning “under a green sea” of poisonous gas. He traumatically watches his friend die, “guttering, choking, [and] drowning” from the chlorine gas (Roberts). Owen does not spare any gory details about the brutality of the war. He instead writes about its realities: the shells’ constant “bangs,” the disgusting conditions and smell of the trenches, the corpses of fellow soldiers (Fussel). In the last lines of the poem, Owen ridicules society’s “high zest” for the glory of fighting. He says that if people truly knew what war was like, they would not encourage the “innocent,” their children, to seek an honorable death in battle. Owen quotes Horace in the last two lines of Latin, saying that the Roman poet’s ideal of bravery is a lie; he stresses that it is in fact not sweet to die for one’s nation (Roberts).
Owen’s war experience led him to lose faith in his society’s popular beliefs about war. At first, Owen entered the war optimistic and excited to serve his country (Wikipedia). However, after going though several traumatic incidents in the trenches, he had a change of heart. The brutality of war’s true nature, not a romanticized version of battle such Horace’s depiction, caused Owen to stray away from the ideals his country had instilled in him before his service. The warfare of World War I was unlike the combat of any previous war because of its trenches, gas explosives, and machine guns (Duiker 632). After witnessing such monstrosities and the death of his fellow servicemen, Owen was unable to believe in his culture’s reverence for the glory of fighting. This poem exhibits a crisis of faith in national ideals through horrifying images that challenge the popular conception of war’s righteousness. The crisis of faith that the characters of Persepolis go through during the Iranian Revolution is similar to that of the soldiers of World War I because both come to question their belief systems after experiencing a betrayal of trust. In Persepolis, the government deceives Mrs. Narsine by pretending to have pure, religious motives; in reality, the regime was attempting to persuade her son to go to war against Iraq by telling him he would supposedly die in the name of God. Likewise, Owen felt his society lied to him by telling him stories about the glory of war. He then could no longer trust his society’s belief system and lost the faith he had in his country’s values.
Duiker, William J. and Speilvogel, Jackson J., Eds. World History. 5th ed. Belmont, CA:
Thomas Wadsworth, 2007.
“Dulce et Decorum Est.” Wikipedia. 1 May 2011. 20 Apr. 2011.
Fussel, Paul. “The Trenches—What They Were Really Like.” Pbs.org. 18 Apr. 2011.
Owen, Wilfred. “Dulce et Decorum Est.” 1917.
Roberts, David. “Wilfred Owen: Dulce et Decorum Est.” Out in the Dark. Saxon Books:
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