soldier crawling on hands and knees through a trench under a cloud of poisonous gas with dead soldiers in the foreground and background

Dulce et Decorum Est

by Wilfred Owen

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Discussion Topic

Types of conflict in "Dulce et Decorum Est" and their effectiveness

Summary:

"Dulce et Decorum Est" features both external and internal conflicts. The external conflict arises from the brutal realities of war, vividly depicted through graphic imagery. The internal conflict is seen in the soldiers' psychological trauma and the poet's struggle with the false glorification of war. These conflicts effectively convey the poem's anti-war message, highlighting the horrific experiences of soldiers and challenging patriotic propaganda.

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What are the types of conflict in "Dulce Et Decorum Est"?

The main conflict in this World War I poem is between what people have been taught about war and the reality of what war is. As the Latin title indicates, people learn that war is "sweet and fitting" to fight, but the poem's graphic imagery shows that, in reality, war is horrible and that there is nothing fitting about it. The point of the poem is didactic: the narrator desperately wants to sweep away people's false notions that war is heroic and ennobling.

For example, the poem opens by showing the soldiers as weak and exhausted. They are anything but heroic. They are,

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags . . .
The gas attack that follows also reveals that war is not heroic. There is no heroism or nobility in being the victim who has inhaled gas: it simply means a horrible, painful death,...

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the blood "gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs . . . "
At the end of the poem, the speaker directly implores the people at home to stop telling "the lie" that war is glorious.
A second conflict in the poem is the speaker's sense of feeling "helpless" amid all the suffering. He has a deep desire to do something positive to change the situation, but knows there is little he can do on the battlefield. What he tries to do is write a poem that will educate people about war's reality.
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It is very interesting to examine the way that conflict is presented in this excellent poem based on the horrors of World War I. I would argue that there are three different kinds of conflict in this poem. Let us first start off with the physical conflict that being in a war involves. The soldiers that are limping away from the "haunting flares" of the battlefield and are slowly making their way towards the "distant rest" that awaits them. However, even though they are retreating they are not safe, as the gas attack shows. This physical conflict is therefore perhaps the most important type of conflict that there is.

However, at the same time, let us not be blind to the way that the speaker himself is subject to an emotional conflict, as the images of what he experienced as a soldier haunt him every single night:

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

The way in which the speaker cannot escape this terrible images shows the emotional conflict that he suffers as he tries to live his life but is unable to move on from this experience. This is a conflict that psychologically, the speaker pushes on to his audience at the end of the poem. Note how this is reinforced by the change of tense, as suddenly the speaker addresses us by saying "If you...", involving us in the horror and tragedy of war and causing us to question our beliefs about war and conflict. This is not a poem to be read and enjoyed from the comfort of our armchairs. We are placed in a position of psychological conflict too.

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What are three types of conflicts in the poem "Dulce et Decorum Est"? Why are they effective?

Here are some possible ideas to get you started. I would consider using the opening lines to show the environmental conflict-

 Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

 As many of the soldiers died due to the conditions rather than as a result of direct combat this is an important point.

 To signify the physical conflict I would use the gas attack and the soldiers’ panicked response-

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

 For the psychological conflict I would refer to the challenge of the gas attack and the trauma of seeing his colleague die, and the image returning to the narrator’s dreams-

 Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

 Finally I would use the emotion of Owen’s challenge to Jessie Pope and the other propagandists which concludes the poem-

 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.

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