How does the use of metaphor establish the main ideas in "Dulce et Decorum Est"?
The strongest metaphorWilfred Owen uses in "Dulce et Decorum Est" is the metaphor of drowning in a "green sea." The poem describes a soldier who, during a poison gas attack, fails to get his gas mask on in time. The speaker in the poem sees the floundering man through the celluloid panes of his own gas mask. The green color of the chlorine gas plus the warped image caused by the celluloid lenses combine to make the man appear "as under a green sea"; his physical symptoms as he is deprived of oxygen are compared to drowning.
The speaker in the poem experiences what we would now call post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of seeing the man die. The speaker states,
"In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, he plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning."
Again, the metaphor of drowning is used.
In the last...
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section of the poem, the speaker addresses his "friend," and states that if she had the same kinds of dreams the speaker had, she would not try to recruit young men to join the war effort by telling them the lie that it is sweet and appropriate to die for one's country. (The friend is Jessie Pope, the author of jingoistic war poetry.) Both the horrible deaths and the mental anguish experienced by the survivors prove that dying in the Great War fighting for one's country was anything but glorious.The metaphor of drowning--helplessly struggling for air--makes the experience understandable for those who have not seen the horrors of chemical warfare first hand. Thus the metaphor is effective in helping Owen establish his main ideas in the poem.
What instances of personification, simile, metaphor, irony, and imagery are there in "Dulce et Decorum Est"?
I have pasted in the sources section below a link to the Guide to Literary Terms, in which each of these devices is defined. I'll give you a couple examples of each and let you find the rest of them in the poem.
Personification occurs when the author gives human characteristics to an inanimate object or animal. Look at how Owen describes the guns and see if you can find personification in them.
Similes and metaphors are comparisons; simile uses the word "like" or "as," and a metaphor does not. One simile in the poem is in the line "His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin." An example of a metaphor is the expression "blood-shod." The soldiers have lost their boots, and their feet are bloody instead.
Irony occurs in the whole poem, especially with the title and the final lines, which can be translated as "It is good and fitting to die in the service of one's country."
Imagery is mental pictures that the poem evokes for the reader. I won't give you any examples of imagery because that should be something you can "imagine" for yourself. Hint: the poem is full of images of war and pain.