Analysis

• "Dulce et Decorum est" - The poem’s title is taken from a Latin saying which was often quoted at the start of the First World War to encourage men to fight. It means, ‘It is sweet and honourable...’, yet in this poem Owen presents the harsh and unglamorous reality of trench warfare.
• "Bent double" - The words 'double' shows that the soldiers are so exhausted that they cannot even stand up
• "Like old beggars" , "Coughing like hags" - Owen uses similes to suggest that the men are prematurely old and weakened.
• "Trudge" - The verb ‘trudge’ suggests a slow and heavy walk because of

  the harsh conditions suffered by the soldiers.
• "Men marched asleep.", "deaf", "lame and blind" - The metaphor 'men marched asleep' suggests the extreme exhaustion of the soldiers. They are 'deaf', 'lame' and 'blind', which suggests that war has completely broken these men.
• "Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!" - Suddenly, the pace of the poem quickens with the warning ‘Gas! GAS! Quick boys!’, creating a sense of urgency as the soldiers scramble around trying to fit their gas masks.
• "yelling out and stumbling" - the speaker describes the terror and panic of a soldier who has not managed to pull on his gas mask in time.
• "In all my dreams" - The speaker describes his recurrent, haunting nightmares of the gas attack, showing he can never have peace, not even in his sleep.
• "my helpless sight", "guttering, choking, drowning" - His dreams recount the feeling of helplessness as he watched his fellow man suffocate, the

  listed verbs emphasising a slow, drawn-out death.
• "you too could pace" - The speaker addresses the reader directly. He feels that if those back home had experienced the horrors of war first-hand, they would not convince men to go to war.
• "Behind the wagon that we flung him in, and watch the white eyes writhing in his face," - The grotesque image of the man’s eyes rolling back in his head suggest that he is still alive when he is ‘flung’ into the wagon. The verb ‘flung’ shows that there is no time or space for dignity in death at war, and no burial for its victims.
• "Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs," - Owen continues to

  use gruesome imagery to emphasise the horrific consequences of the gas attack.
• "To children ardent for some desperate glory," - The word ‘children’ shows Owen’s belief that war is wasteful of young lives. Owen feels that impressionable young men are lured to war by the false promise of ‘glory’, and he is blaming the attitude back at home that serving your country is glorious.
• "The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patriamori." - The Latin used at the end of the poem means, 'It is sweet and honourable to die for your country'. Owen rejects this as an ‘old lie’, and highlights that war is cruel, degrading and horrifying.