Comparison between the poems ‘Disabled’ and ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’

            In the poems Disabled and Dulce et Decorum Est, both written by Wilfred Owen, we read of the terrible consequences of war. Wilfred Owen (1893 – 1918) had himself been a soldier during the First World War and had suffered numerous physical wounds as well as ‘shell-shock’, before dying on the battle field on the 4^th November, 1918. During his time in hospital, he began to write poems as a means of protest against the atrocities of war and in an attempt to promote a peace settlement.

Owen has done as much as anyone to prevent people from being persuaded that death in battle is ‘sweet’ and ‘decorous’. His poem, entitled Dulce et Decorum Est, the famous Latin phrase from Horace’s Odes, is the angry response of the poet to the patriotic enthusiasm for war. The poem almost seems like a witness’s account; the piece is based upon evidence and drawn conclusions.

Written with an alternate rhyme scheme, the poem is the description of a gas attack and the resulting death of a soldier. Some men are returning to camp after their duty up at the front. Owen compares them to “old beggars under sacks” (Line 1) and to “hags” (Line 2). The war seems to have prematurely aged them and this use of similes paints a clear picture of the soldiers and intensifies the horror of the attack. The men are exhausted, sick and covered in mud. They stagger back with difficulty "all blind; drunk with fatigue; deaf to even to the hoots of gas-shells dropping softly behind” (Line 6); too tired to notice the gas shells dropping  near them.

Owen’s use of pauses and commas enforces the tense atmosphere and the drama which is about to happen. In fact, suddenly, poisonous gas spreads around the men. The gas attack surprises the exhausted soldiers. There is “an ecstasy of fumbling” (Line 9) and they succeed in putting on their gas-masks. Apart from one, who is too slow;

“But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And floundering like a man in fire or lime.”

(Line 11)

A list of three verbs, ‘yelling’, ‘stumbling’ and ‘floundering’, is used to describe the terrible pain suffered by the unfortunate soldier, as well as again to enforce the drama and tension of the situation.

The poet is the witness, in first person, of the terrible scene.

“…I saw him drowning.” (Line 14)

The soldier is suffocating because of the gas, the ‘green sea’, in which he is drowning. The use of the personal pronoun ‘I’ involves the reader in the situation. It is as if the reader was there, seeing the man die slowly and painfully. This consequently creates a sense of guilt in the reader. I think it is really painful to look at someone suffer when you are right in front of him, without being able to do anything.

            The poet has experienced. He is having terrible nightmares and continues to relive the agony of the soldier. The detailed description of the dead man is purposely vivid to impress and shock the reader;

“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”

(Line 17)

Owen’s tone is bitter and resentful. He is ardently against war. The soldier dies in the worst kind of way. Owen wants to shows us that there is nothing ‘sweet’ and ‘decorous’ about dying in this manner and I think he is right.

            In the last stanza, Owen uses a sarcastic and ironic tone. In fact, the agony inflicted by the gas is so tremendous that it is the same pain a devil would feel if he were sick of sinning:

“His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;”

(Line 20)

This clearly shows Owen’s irony, since a devil’s pleasure should be committing sins. However, gassing is so evil and horrendous that the devil himself feels sick of it.

Furthermore, the direct speech “My friend, you would not tell…” (Line 25) can be seen as a response to poets, such as Jenny Pope, who wrote numerous pre-war children’s books, picturing warfare with enthusiasm.

Owen’s words are powerful. He wants people to realize and understand the atrocities of war. He is certain that if they could witness the wasteful deaths of many young soldiers, then they would not say that it is honorable and good to die for the country. They would not tell the ‘old Lie’: “Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.”(Line 27), ironic title which adds to the poem meaning and value.

The last couple of lines are a passionate attack against those who promote the patriotic lie. Powerful words with which Owen wants to warn us not to be deceived by them.

            Owen focused on the pity of war. Pity as in love for soldiers as well as sorrow for what happens to them; for the young men who are killed or horribly mutilated, as in the second poem.

In Disabled, we read of a veteran who remained leg-less and armless as a result of his terrible injuries, and is now confined to a wheelchair in which he spends his days remembering his past. This poems brings all the pain and tremendous suffering many men experienced because of the war. The overall tone of the poem is rather sad and remorseful. It is full of pity for all those wounded and dead who had fought in that ‘useless’ War. As a matter of fact, right from the first line there is the feeling of loneliness of the soldier:

He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,

And shivered in his ghastly suit of gray

(Line 1)

The use of the words ‘dark’, ‘gray’ and ‘shivered’ creates the idea of isolation and of death of the wounded soldier. You already pity the poor man in the wheel chair.

            The soldier begins to think back  and remembers his happier past. However, such memories underline the tragic and pitiful state he is in now…

“In the old times, before he threw away his knees.”

(Line 10)

The implication that this was a needless loss is later reinforced when the wounded soldier doesn’t remember why he had joined the army in the first place, only remembering the reason to be a distant sense of duty and euphoria after a football match. Actually, not only is there the physical loss of his limbs, but also the psychological scars as the man realizes that he will be shunned by women from now on as “some queer disease.” Owen uses many similes to paint perfect images. He shows us how the war reduces this once healthy and athletic young man into a cripple.           

As in the first poem, Owen again uses irony effectively, in order to show the futility of war, as we can see from the following quotation;

“One time he liked a blood-smear down his leg,

After the matches, carried shoulder-high.”

(Line 21)

We are already aware that the soldier has lost an arm and a leg, yet here we are told that before the War he felt proud to have an injury, and to be carried shoulder-high. There is also a use of contrasts: sporting hero as opposed to cripple, handsome to “queer disease”, colour to dark, warmth to cold. Owen did this to emphasize the difference between his youth and his time at war. His adolescence was happy and joyful, and is related to warmth and colour. His time up at the front, on the other hand, was very dreadful and terrible, dark and cold as is described.

            The man’s vision as a young boy of the army was totally naïve and incorrect. Now he regrets having joined up and wonders what had pushed him;

“- he wonders why.” (Line 24)

He realizes that he did it because he thought it was just a game. He joined because “someone said he’d look a god in kilts” and “to please his Meg”. The soldier joined simply for reasons of vanity and pride. He didn’t really care about the actual events and politics behind the war:

“Germans he scarcely though of; all their guilt

And Austria’s, did not move him…”

(Line 30)

It is very ironic how a seemingly boyish game became so fatal, without him even realizing. Actually, it becomes even more ironic when we read that he wasn’t even old enough to enroll, and therefore “they wrote his lie; aged nineteen years.”

            We again feel sorry for the soldier when we read about his return home after the war:

“Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.”

(Line 37)

Here, there is again a comparison of before and after. It implies that, when he was younger, he was carried from the field shoulder-high, possibly for having scored the winning goal. Here, however, despite having achieved more, as well as at a greater cost, the crowd’s reception is colder. Only one man came to congratulate him. Nevertheless, the verb ‘thanked’ is used and it is written in italics which suggests the narrator’s astonishment and surprise at hearing such a word as well as to show the irony of the situation. As a matter of fact, the poet is scorning the fact that the soldier received such little gratitude and thanks.

            Now his life is completely ruined: he will never be able to do what he wants to anymore. Ironically, he is now dependent on the young women to put him to bed, in contrast with before, when he could expect to take them to bed. This idea is again reinforced by the fact that the women do not look at him anymore:

“Tonight he noticed how the women’s eyes

Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.”

(Line 43)

This emphasizes the loss suffered by the soldier, this time in his attractiveness to the opposite sex. Additionally, the adjective ‘whole’ implies that he is incomplete, less than a man.

            In addition to this, overall, the poem is structured in irregular and somewhat incomplete stanzas. This could possibly reflect the blurry flashbacks which the soldier is having. Owen has again used an alternate rhyming scheme.

            After all these reflections and memories, the narrator pities the soldier to such an extent that he gets impatient that the nurses haven’t yet arrived to put him to bed:

“How cold and late it is! Why don’t they come

And put him to bed? Why don’t they come?”

(Line 45)

In both poems there is wide use of irony, however, in Disabled the poem plays with the reader’s feelings through ironical cross-references, while the first poem is made up of simple, separate statements. This is done so that in either case, the reader can easily understand what Owen is trying to point out to us: that war is a terrible thing, a disgrace for human kind.

Additionally, both poems have a rather irregular structure, despite a regular alternate rhyming scheme. This is probably because both poems deal with various memories of the writer at war. Consequently, they are disjointed and confused, since many things were happening at the same time; this idea is reflected in the irregularity of the structure.

Furthermore, both pieces evoke a sense of hatred towards war as well as pity for all those who fell during the Great War. Actually, all of Owen’s later poems are characterized by their focus on the pity of war. There is guilt and sorrow in both pieces: in the Dulce et Decorum Est for telling ‘the old Lie’ as well as the death of the soldier, while in Disabled  for what has happened to the veteran. It is clear however, that both describe war’s cruelty and ugliness, its power which denies even those who survive, relief from pain.

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