World War 1

World War 1 was thought to be the war that would end all wars. The sheer scale of the conflict absorbed the entire planet as resources and materiel were flooded into Europe to support one side or the other. The work I found most intriguing is a famous poem that I have encountered before: Wilfred Owen's "Dulce Et Decorum Est." This haunting poem reminded me greatly of the novel by Erich Remarque: All Quiet on the Western Front. Both works are presented by a soldier's perspective and both show the same experience. The concept of War is by no means a stranger to mankind. Wars have been fought for as long as there have been nations. It is only recently, with the advent of newer and more clever ways of killing each other, that such tremendous death tolls as those seen in the World Wars have been achieved. Before I speak directly of the poem and its meaning for me, I would like to recount an experience from my high school days that I think of whenever I read a poem, short story, novel, etc. that details the atrocities soldiers and civilians face in wars. In my Junior English class, our teacher was speaking to us about an article she read in the local newspaper. The article was about a high schooler, much like ourselves, who had read Remarque's novel and decided to write an essay (which the newspaper published) about the need for peace in the world, the futility of war, and the need for greater understanding and compassion between all people. You may be expecting me to tell you that our teacher was singing this boys praises. Not quite. Our teacher lividly disagreed and said that simply because he read "All Quiet on the Western Front" he cannot possibly understand the nature of war and that he did not have the right to say wars should not be fought. All I took away from her argument was that it is easy to say wars are worth fighting when its not you in the trenches. So much for the civilian's perspective. Now, as for Dulce Et Decorum Est, I found this particular poem tremendously morbid and somber. The tone the poet sets is unbearably bleak using lines such as "the white eyes writhing in his face, his hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin" (Owen 1102). You can imagine the horrifying images that passed through the soldiers as they hauled their ally's corpse back to the body wagon. What makes this scene all the more poignant is that these soldiers have served their time in the trenches, at least for the time being. They are dead tired and moving back to rest and reprieve, and suddenly one of them is killed by green toxic gas. The most powerful lines of this poem are, in my opinion, however, the closing four: "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" (Owen 1102). Sweet and fitting is it to die for your fatherland.