Dulce et Decorum
Est
Learning objectives:
1. to consolidate your PEEL skills
2. TO develop understanding of the rest of the
poem
3.How to prepare for the assessment next lesson
The PEEL paragraph (you have
in your book)
Owen presents the soldiers in stanza one as crippled by
injury and exhaustion. He describes them as men who
‘marched asleep’ and who ‘all went lame; all blind’. The
soldiers are operating on autopilot- they are so fatigued
that they are not fully conscious which suggests they are
receiving inadequate rest and care. The metaphor
‘marched asleep’ presents them not as alert and prepared
as we would expect but potentially vulnerable to attack.
Owen also shows how they are beset by injury and
disability because they are limping ‘lame’ and suffering
with eyesight problems ‘blind’; he emphasises the extent of
this problem through the word ‘all’ stressing that every
soldier falls victim to ill health which is a frightening
statistic and in direct contrast to the images of athleticism
and fitness shown in the recruitment propaganda.
PEEL paragraph by a fantastic 8F student
O In the poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’, Owen presents soldiers who
once held dignity, whose strength could be told just by posture, as
life drained and weary: unable now to even hold the strong
posture they’d once had. Owen also doesn’t agree with the act of
brutal war. He describes the soldiers with the metaphor ‘drunk
with fatigue’ suggesting that the soldiers are intoxicated with
drowsiness; the conditions of war are so harsh and unforgiving it
has exhausted once demanding soldiers and made them humble.
The word ‘drunk’ suggests they are disorientated and unbalanced
which frighteningly shows their vulnerability in battle. The quote
could also suggest the men are so drunk with exhaustion they are
used to the art of killing innocent men who have been tricked into
thinking “it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country” by
propaganda just as the innocent men.
Last lesson we looked at stanza
two
Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets(8) just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime(9) . . .
Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
PEEL paragraph on stanza two
In stanza two, Owen changes from observation to action as the
soldiers experience a gas attack which is presented vividly in the
present tense for the reader.
Devices you could analyse:
Direct speech
Exclamative tone
Monosyllabic command verbs
Paradox / juxtaposition ‘ecstasy of fumbling’
Personification ‘clumsy helmets’
Present continuous tense ‘stumbling’ ‘yelling’
Sea / drowning metaphor
Postponement of main clause
Adjectives to convey confusion and submersion ‘thick’ misty’
‘green’
Stanza 3
In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking,
drowning.
In the third stanza, Owen returns to the
present and confesses how he is haunted by
his war experiences; he is describing would be
referred to now as post-traumatic stress
disorder.
Stanza 4
If in some smothering dreams, you too could
pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
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.
Red question
What does this
simile suggest about
the soldiers?
Blue question
How could the sores
be symbolic?
Green question
What tone is used
here?
Owen promises
Jessie Pop and those
who believe the
government’s
propaganda with
‘high zest’ that if
they had witnessed
the horror of war , as
he had, they would
Your assessment
O 45 minutes
O Clean copy of poem
O Tuesday 20th p.1
Success Criteria
O AF1 – effective use and embedding of quotes
O AF3 – perceptive inference and interpretation
O AF5 – imaginative and technically precise analysis of language,
device and structure
O AF6 – confident understanding of the poet’s attitudes and
message
O Preparation: prepare your 3 PEEL points plus intro
Remember to use effective
vocabulary