Innocent Sympathy At Home By Wilfred Owen - 1262 Words

Innocent admiration at home. A war on the Western Front. Men dying in the trenches without the comfort of their deserved Christian burial. Others sit by panicked and shell-shocked, watching as their comrades die in the dirt. Others feel nothing—they do not notice. They do not even notice their own rotting feet anymore. War and destruction that broke the lives of too many innocent young men. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. â€Å"Sweet and fitting it is to die for your fatherland† (Damrosch 2160). This â€Å"The old Lie† Wilfred Owen seeks to invalidate, that thoughtless notion that death in war is glorious, which he achieves through similes, which shape much of the poem’s imagery, and irony. These similes are an attempt to relate the loss, pain, and unfairness of war and the death that many succumbed to. The title of the poem is â€Å"Dulce Et Decorum Est,† meaning it is sweet and fitting, suggesting a nobleness and strength. However, this is not what the text of the poem relates. Rather, the speaker tells of too-tired men who trudge toward their â€Å"distant rest† (Owen 4). The irony lies here in the bitterness and ugliness of the battlefield. The depiction of the bootless, lame, blind men and the soldier who died all lead up to the last two lines of the poem. In these two lines, the speaker unveils the irony of the satirist Horace’s phrase from his Odes, â€Å"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,† referring to it as â€Å"The old Lie† (27-28). In the last two lines, the speaker finishes the restShow MoreRelatedThe Most Enduring Phenomena Spawned The Great War Created A Literal Response1564 Words   |  7 PagesTraining Corps. As honourable soldiers we’re aware that as time passes, our imaginative existence has changed dramatically by a n umber of traumatic experiences. We, are ALL Wilfred Owen. One of the most enduring phenomena spawned The Great War created a literal response which evoked from its immediate participants, the soldiers. 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