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Eloi Simon

How do Wilfred Owen’s attitudes to patriotism differ in Dulce et Decorum
Est and The Send-off?
Introduction​: in the first place, Wilfred Owen was a soldier in World War 1
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Therefore he
spent the rest of his life in hospital, where he wrote about his experience
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Compared to Wilfred Owen, many war poets spent a short and uneventful time at the front,
which influences their view of patriotism greatly
Answer to question:
Owen always had a negative attitude towards war and this is due to his experience in it
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However,
Owen showed several aspects of anti-patriotism in his writing
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In other words, patriotism in times of war is a lie
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The
poem is the scene of a group leaving to a war front
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The witnesses to this
scene, a few porters, a homeless man, also show anti-patriotism because they know what could
happen to these soldiers
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It is told to the reader in a more direct manner, because it constitutes the last line of the
poem:
The old Lie: Dulce et Decorum Est
Pro patria Mori
Which is latin for “Sweet and Glorious to die for one’s fatherland”
When you first hear about the poem, you see its title, which only includes “It is Sweet and
Glorious
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The poem advances through a series of violent and graphic images that leave us to think that
there is nothing positive to war
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He describes in detail the death of a soldier during a gas
attack, and what it does to him
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It haunts them for the rest of their days
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In the second line, the author describes the soldiers as “knock-kneed, coughing like hags,
cursing through sludge
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This shows us the reality of soldiers going to war: No
patriotic songs, no perfect lines of soldiers marching onwards with strength, but just men bent
down and struggling to go onwards
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” It contributes to the negative atmosphere of the scene,
and since it refers to men struggling while marching to war, it shows anti-patriotism and the
reality of war, once again
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For example, the verbs used when describing the men marching to war are quite
powerful
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These verbs affect the reader because of the emotion they add to the text
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Without these verbs the poem could be misinterpreted into the soldiers still being
marching onwards with strength with the verb “advancing,” for example
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The speaker witnesses a
fellow soldier dying during a gas attack by the enemy
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This shows how the dreams of glory and patriotism in the war transformed into visions
of horror as the soldiers advanced in the war, up to the point that even soldiers had trouble
seeing the war as a glorious event
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The Send-Off - Page 236 - 1918
Anti-patriotism in The Send-Off is not that obvious, and this is because the war is seen from an
external point of view
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This also shows that they are happy and cheerful towards their
departure
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” To
me, it is patriotism that keeps them in a somewhat happy mood
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This means that at
this point soldiers leaving to war were aware of the horrors of war since it was towards the end
of it
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The war is an opportunity for them to serve for their country and be recognized for it
later on
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The sentence (on line 11, 5th stanza) “So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went” proves
the pessimism in this event
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In other words they lack support from
others through patriotic songs and
Lastly, the authors asks us, in the second to last stanza (lines 16 to 18),
“Shall they return to beatings of great bells
In wild train-loads?
A few, a few, too few for drums and yells
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It tells us that too few soldiers
will return for drums and yells, meaning patriotic songs and cheers
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There is emphasis on the “few” through repetition, which shows how impactful it is how little of
them will come back
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The effect of time passing is that as time goes by, patriotism in war fades away
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In Dulce et Decorum Est, it is a violent and direct attitude, and
gives us a series of horrible images to convey anti-patriotism
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Bibliography
Hibberd, Dominic, and John Onions, comps
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London: Constable, 2008
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