Wilfred Owen Essay

Wilfred Owen, perhaps one of the most well-known war poets, expressed his feelings and ideas about World War I with an unrivaled intensity. In particular, Owen was highly skilful in drawing the audience into the world of poetry and especially into the world of war, through his exploration of death, the horrors of war and the reality of war. This is most evident in the poems, “Dulce Et Decorum Est” and “The Next War”, in which Owen makes sophisticated use of poetic and structural techniques to engage the audience.
Wilfred Owen’s preoccupation with the idea of death in the poem, “Dulce Et Decorum Est”, draws the audience into the world of poetry and directly into his world of war. He provokes the audience and brings the audience right into the action, making the audience imagine what it was like to see and hear the death of innocent soldiers. Owen use vivid imagery to describe the state of a dying solider “His hanging face, like a devils sick sin.” The use of simile, irony and visual imagery, displays the gruesome details of the soldiers face due to the gas attack and being flung from a wagon. This startles the audience and makes the audience visualize this soldier’s pain and suffering while slowly dying. The line “devil sick sin”, leads the reader into the mind the of the dying solider making the audience feel his pain and his pity, it depicts the solider questioning all the things he had done while at war, all the sins he committed while in the last moments of death. Similarly,   Owen also displays the idea of war in the poem “The Next War”, although in a different context. Owen personifies death and makes the readers feel as if death were the soldier’s constant companion and not the enemy. “Out there, we’ve walked quite friendly up to Death” the use of personification, and death being capitalizes makes the audience feel that death is a person and a friend to the soldiers. Owen later refers to death as being an “old chum”. Death being an ally to the soldiers and...