I chose Owen’s “Dulce Et Decorum Est” because of two specific phrases that spoke to me. The first connection I made to this poem was a personal one. Owen’s description of the soldier who died of gas and subsequently haunted his dreams was reminiscent of my own nightmares throughout this course. While I haven’t seen men “[plunging] at me, guttering, choking, drowning,” I have experienced Nellie’s endless parade of broken men as I try to fall asleep. They are “in all my dreams before my helpless sight.” I wish I could undo the pain and suffering people experienced during the Great War, but I am unable to change the past. I’m helpless. This course has affected me emotionally far more than I thought it would, and it will likely take me some time for the nightmares to leave me fully. My experience is nothing compared to Owen’s, or indeed of anyone who has been impacted by war, but I empathize with his nightmares.

The second phrase in this poem that stuck out to me was the ending, which reads “the old Lie: Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori.” Throughout the semester, we’ve seen a theme of disillusionment in the works we’ve read. The disillusionment is almost always related to patriotism. Most of the characters who espouse patriotic views are from the home front (with the exception of the BF), where they don’t know the extent of the suffering their troops and medical workers are going through. Similarly, the patriotic writers we’ve read (for example, Kipling) did not actually fight. I, too, was disillusioned throughout this course; I’d thought the Great War was a time of suffering but I did not know the true horror of the battlefield. It is not sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. No one should have to go through the pain and suffering of war. Owen’s poem describes a key theme of the larger literary canon of the Great War very concisely and convincingly.