Dolce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen
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In the poems “Dolce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen and “Fall In” by Harold Bebgie the authors of the two poems achieve the purpose of their poems through the use of language techniques.
The poem “Dolce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen is about war and how it isnt as glamorous as it was made out to be. The poem is written to Jessie Pope, a poet in London who is writing propagandist poems to persuade young men to go to war. Wilfred Owen writes about how it is good to die for your country but not in the sense of how many young and innocent men are dying in inhumane ways. The purpose of the poem is to show the horrors of war and how writers like Jessie Pope are saying it is good to die for your country, is really all a lie.
The purpose of “Dolce et Decorum Est” is achieved through the use of language techniques. The poem is written in first person which personalises the story and suggests that Wilfred Owen has been to war so he knows the true horrors of it. This is shown in the line “As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight.” In the last stanza Owen creates an allusion, “The old lie: Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori” implies the reference that going to war makes you become a hero. However in the ending it makes another reference to the famous words which is the title, “Dolce et Decorum Est”. After reading this as the reader you are now forced to re-evaluate the idea of war and how what you may have thought of believed, is a lie. Owen also used emotive language to highlight or contrast the difference between good and evil. “Of vile, incurable sores on innocent sores” shows how the impacts of war were incurable for so many innocent men. Wilfred Owen uses the language techniques of first person, allusion and emotive language to show how the war was killing too many innocent men in horrible and disgusting ways.
The poem “Fall In” by Harold Begbie was written as a propagandist poem so men would join the war. The poem is about how men in particular need to “fall in”, meaning an instruction to get into line and to go fight for their country. Begbie talks about how life will become more difficult if you dont go to war and he talks about the consequences of it like how your girlfriend could ignore you, your children could be ashamed in you and you will feel awkward and not included when your neighbours talk about the war. The purpose of the poem is to illustrate how joining the war will make you look like a hero and how it is right to fight for your country but how you are also fighting for god.
The purpose of “Fall In” is to make the shirkers feel ashamed for not volunteering; this is achieved through the use of language techniques. The use of colloquial language like “With a girl who cuts you dead,” creates a conversational tone throughout the