1. In ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’, why were the soldiers fumbling with their helmets?
· War usually is a bloody series of battles between 2 or more factions. Usually it is between tribes or countries. In Dulce et Decorum, Wilfred Owen describes war as being deadly, very bloody and disgusting where soldiers are innocently killed, ripped apart and treated like beggars without hope and they are very smelly. However, in wars countries generally tell the people something like it is sweet and nice to die for your country. That is what ‘Dulce et decorum et pro patria mori’ means. However, in Owen’s poem he argues that in reality it is not sweet and nice at all, in fact it is disgusting and sometimes makes you hate your country.
2. Explain why the floundering man in ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ is Described as ‘drowning’?
· in terms of what this line Represent In the poem, it described a particularly horrific death that leads the narrator to the conclusion that the notion that “it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country” is a lie. The narrator, a young soldier in world war I, sees a fellow soldier who fails to put his gas mask in time when chlorine gas dropped. As the soldier’s lungs burn, they fill with blood, so that he is actually drowning In this liquid. However this death is not quick one; it is the stuff of nightmares.
3. In ‘exposure’, why are the bullets less deadly than the snow?
· The repeated use of the ‘s’ sound reminds the reader of the bullets which are whizzing past the ears of the soldiers. As the lines follow one another so, gradually, the ‘s’ sounds fade away; just as the hail of bullets would do. Intertwined into the same stanza are two other careful uses of alliteration as Owen uses the repeated ‘f’s on the third line and ‘w’s of the fourth line to form intricate word patterns. A clear example of assonance can be found in the third stanza where the sound of a long ‘o’ in the words 'soak', 'know' and 'grow' emphasises the slow tedious wait for something to occur. This same long ‘o’ sound occurs again in the sixth stanza
4. Find and list the three similes in these poems.
· soldiers in World War I are said to be “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks.” Here the simile is unpleasant, since a beggar is poor and without...
· Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
· Men marched asleep.
5. What is the rhyme scheme of ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’?
· Upon one's first consideration of Wilfred Owen's poem, "Dulce Et Decorum Est", the form it takes appears conventional. It rhymes well enough, following an ABAB, CDCD, etc. pattern and traveling in one 8-line stanza, one 6-line stanza, one 2-line stanza and one 12-line stanza.
6. Choose one of the Wilfred owen poems and list the number of syllables in each lines. Are there any lines that have a drastically different number of syllables from the average? Why do you think that is?
· There are three time periods referred to in the poem. You could ...
