Dulce_Et_Decorum_Est_Comparison

Dulce et decorum est comparison The first draft of the poem was a letter addressed to a woman named Jessie Pope, who was a civilian propagandist of World War I, who encouraged—"with such high zest"—young men to join the battle, through her poetry. At the beginning Wilfred Owen uses descriptive words to make the reader see a specific image of what he wants us to see or even feel. “Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge…” which is used until last draft shows us that the soldiers were tired but so tired they were brought down to beggars. The “disappointed shells that dropped behind”, perhaps were disappointed because they were missing their target but soon “somewhere near in front”, explodes a missile and Owen asks, “ Gas-shells or duds'”. Not sure of what is was they still fitted “ the clumsy helmets just in time”. He made a remark which I found interesting which was, “ Then smartly Poison hit us in the face” showing that he had thought that what the enemy had done was very smart, emphasizing the word poison with a capital P. One of the men didn’t make it on time and Owens describes the scene in a sort of “dim green light as under a thick sea” as he saw the man drowning because of the gas. Maybe he described it as green light because the lens of his mask might have been green themselves, giving the poet such an effect of green sea. This quote “In all your dreams if you could slowly pace behind the wagon that we laid him in”, tries to make you watch the scene as if you were one of them looking at the horrible sight of, “The blood come blenching black frothy from the lungs…” someone just standing there looking at the man without being able to help because all you could do was watch him as he died in horrible pain. Owen describes then man’s face before he died, as a “bud.. fresh as a young country rose….”showing what an innocent face the soldier had before his death an the final message Owen tries to tell is, is that its useless to die for your country. Compared to the first draft, you can see Owen that kept more or less the same structure throughout the poem although the poem begins with “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks” which gives us a better idea of what the soldiers looked like compared to “ bent, like old rage + bone men sacks”, He changes sentences such as “Dead slow we moved Many had lost their boots”, to “Dragging the worst amongst us, who’d no boots” to make the sentences suit the picture in his mind I suppose because throughout the poem this line is constantly changed When he refers to his dreams, he slightly changes the action towards the body of the man. “Behind the wagon that we laid him in” to “Behind the limber we flung him in” suggests that he changes from “laying” the body to “flinging”. The fact that the gazed man was "flung" into the wagon reveals an urgency and occupation with fighting As the reader gets closer to final draft, published in 1920, Owen makes modifications by adding specific words to certain scenes like, “The stinging, poison hit us in the face ”, or by simply removing short parts of certain scenes such as “In all your dreams if you could slowly pace behind the limber that we flung him in” form an earlier draft. It shows that this draft has less description towards the body treatment after death. This draft finishes by “The gesturing lie:” and not “the Old Lie:” maybe because he showed it more as a gesture then. The second last draft, is by far the one which is closest to the final one although only small changes have been made. Owen has removed the prose starting with, “Then somewhere near front: Whew… Fup…fop…fup…” And finishing with, “The poison stung us in the face.” probably because its was too much detail which was not useful to understand the poem’s context. Once again…, when he mentions his dreams, the reader himself is referred to, as a friend, “In all my dreams, my friend,…”, Making an effect on which the reader will focus more when he/she will be reading the next few lines because he/she is now involved in what Owen is trying to say. Finally the final draft where Owen mentions the drowning of the man as “Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues” ,trying to say that the man who had died, has died for no valuable reason. This is why Owen wrote ”The old lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.”