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This is a powerful anti-war poem. It is set in the trenches of northern France during the Great War --
a.k.a. World War I -- and describes with graphic detail the horror of the war, especially the gas that
dissolved the lungs and caused the soldiers to die an excruciating and humiliating death by drowning in
their own blood.
Dying for one's country, the poet concludes, is in no way a glorious and honourable thing.
ABOUT THE POET
Wilfred Owen was born in 1893 in Shropshire to a family of committed Christians. He was educated at
the Birkenhead Institute and Shrewsbury Technical College.
Owen wanted to become a teacher but his father could not afford the university fees. Instead, therefore,
he journeyed to France in 1913 where he worked as a tutor. He also wrote occasional poetry, none of
which is particularly known.
When the Great War broke out in 1914, Owen maintained a vague interest in events through cuttings from
newspapers sent by his mother with whom he had a close relationship.
Eventually, however, the pressure of propaganda overcame him and, in October 1915, he returned to
England and enlisted. He was then 22 years of age.
The poet spent a year in training. Letters to his mother reveal that he enjoyed the prestige of wearing the
military uniform.
His training finished at the end of 1916 whereupon he joined the 2nd Manchesters in France where he
took command of No. 3 Platoon.
His enthusiasm initially abounded but soon he was sent to the frontline and witnessed firsthand the gross
tragedy of warfare: living in trenches which were forever knee-deep in mud and water, the rotting corpses
of soldiers, the dreadful war injuries.
"I have suffered seventh hell," he wrote to his mother. "I have not been at the front. I have been
in front of it . . . to where the ground was not mud, not sloppy mud, but an octopus of sucking clay, three,
four, and five feet deep, relieved only by craters full of water . . . "
Initially Owen's character and temperament did not suit his being a soldier. He was a scholar and a poet,
introverted and sensitive. Moreover, he was a committed Christian whose ideals were opposed to warfare
in any form. It was during this period that he appears to have penned most of his anti-war poems.
The war forced him to face a conflict between his Christian beliefs and his role as a soldier, a scholar
wrote. "I am more and more a Christian," he wrote to his mother in May 1917. "Suffer
dishonour and disgrace, but never resort to arms. Be bullied, be outraged, be killed: but do not kill."
Late in 1917 Owen was sent home, suffering from shell-shock. While recuperating in the military hospital,
he fell under the influence of the anti-war poet, Siegfried Sassoon, who aided him in polishing his war
poetry.
Yet Owen appears to have had a distinct dislike for pacifists and did not want to be identified with them.
Indeed, he felt that his poetry could have a far deeper impact if emanating from a soldier in the trenches.
For that reason, therefore, he re-enlisted for the army and, in October 1918, he rejoined his company in
France. This time, however, he appears to have identified himself with the soldiers and took tremendous
risks in battle.
During one encounter, he captured a German machine gun and used it to decimate a host of enemy
soldiers, for which deed he won the Victoria Cross. Although he denied it in letters to his mother, he
appears now to have become a killing machine.
In early November, just one week before the armistice which ended the war, he supervised the
construction of a bridge to cross the Sambre and Oise Canal. Wave after wave of his own men were
massacred in the attempt. Wilfred Owen too fell in a flurry of machine gun bullets.
He was buried in a small British cemetery in northern France. He was then just 25 years of age.
Have you looked at the questions in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer the following questions:
"If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in."
- Identify the figure of speech in "smothering dreams". What is being compared? Why has the
poet used this figure of speech? (5)
[Need help?]
"Smothering dreams" is a metaphor.
His dreams, his terrible nightmares, are like being suffocated with a pillow.
The metaphor shows how the soldier suffers every night in his dreams. He feels as though he is breathing
in the gas even in his dreams.
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- Who does "you" refer to? (1)
[Need help?]
The poet is appealing to you, the reader -- or to the people who send soldiers off to war.
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- What does the word "flung" say about their attitude towards the wounded soldiers? Why have
they developed this attitude? (2)
[Need help?]
The soldiers simply no longer care. They are so used to seeing wounded and dying soldiers that it does
not affect them anymore.
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"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."
- As you read these lines, what can you see and hear when looking at the soldier? (4)
[Need help?]
Can you see the soldier's eyes rolling around in his head? His face is forlorn. Hear him choking on his
own blood. See the sores on his tongue from the gas.
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- Identify the figure of speech in "like a devil's sick of sin". What is being compared? Why does
the poet make this comparison? (5)
[Need help?]
It's a simile, isn't it?
The look on the soldier's face is being compared with that of a devil who has gorged himself with so much
sin that even he is sick as a result.
The look on the soldier's face was as disgusting as if even the devil himself had grown tired and disgusted
at seeing so much sin.
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- Why are the soldiers' tongues described as "innocent"? (2)
[Need help?]
The soldiers are not responsible for the war, but they are dying nevertheless. They do not deserve this
suffering.
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"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."
- Who is "you" in the first line? (2)
[Need help?]
"You" refers to the government, to the people who send soldiers to war.
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- What do the words "zest" and "ardent" mean? (2)
[Need help?]
"Zest" means "enthusiasm". "Ardent" means "eagerness".
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- Explain why the poet regards the "glory" as being "desperate". (2)
[Need help?]
There is no glory in this, is there? You must really be desperate if you are looking for honour in warfare.
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- Sum up what the poet is saying in the last two lines. (2)
[Need help?]
The poet is pointing out that it is a lie to say that it is fitting, sweet, proper or honourable to die for your
country. It is the exact opposite of all that. It is quite disgusting.
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