Blog #1

Passage from Owen's Dulce Et Decorum Est:

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime...

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

As I read Owen’s words, all I can think about is the excruciating pain the soldier, who was too late to put the gas mask on, felt and how nothing was done for him. I felt hopeless and guilty in not being able to respond to the soldier’s pain. It just made me think how little our society knows what it means to go on war and put one’s life as the paying price. Even with the availability of photos and videos about the war does not affect us enough to believe that things could be solved without putting people through death and suffering. I feel that Owen feels somewhat the same about the war as he describes the pain these soldiers are experiencing. He is even trying to portray the advancements in war with the use of the gas bomb, but as the effects of it are described, this point of view back fires in the way the bomb affects the soldiers. The description of this gas bomb establishes how the war has been influenced by technology and how it affects its victims. Owen makes a very critical point with this weapon; he is displaying the true effects technology has instilled in this time. With this notion, we can see how Owen is against the world’s transition from the old techniques in war to new methods WWI receives from the modern technology and how this progress has only caused more pain than benefiting its soldiers.

This passage even reaches a romantic stance as Owen describes the pain of the soldier and the effect of the gas bomb. There is so much emotion and despair happening that the passage becomes surreal as he describes the setting in being “a green sea.” At the same time I also think that he is not being so much of a romantic with these visions but rather he is writing the raw truth. Since most of us have never experienced a real battle scene in war, most would see this passage as an imaginary event that has extreme emotion and description. Therefore, by not experiencing the real truth of this war scene, we can only describe it as being romantic and unimaginable.  

We reject these notions because we have never been through it, so Owen has the need  to go far with his words and descriptions to reach that effect and make people see the true picture of the war. There is no sweetness or pride in this passage, only a suffering that seems unjust to humanity. The word “drowning” at the end of the passage pushes this notion, making the soldier’s situation more dramatic. There is so much hopelessness in this last line, giving the soldier no possibility to avoid his fate. Owen  transmits a feeling of guilt and makes it a consequence to the world’s acceptance in using this gas bomb in the war. Moreover, this passage can contribute to the idea of Owen being  a realist but also a pessimist in the way the passage states how inevitable it is for the soldier not to feel unimaginable pain and die. The passage only contains an optimism for the reader to understand the reality of what it means to die for this war.