How does Wilfred Owen present war in Dulce et Decorum Est

and The Send-Off?

War in propaganda is often portrayed as glorious, but this is opposed in
both The Send-Off and Dulce et Decorum Est. In these poems war is
presented as dull and melancholy. In The Send-Off Wilfred Owen presents
it as boring and sorrowful. Whereas in Dulce et Decorum Est he takes an
angry approach to his poem.

In Jessie Popes Whos for the Game? war is presented as fun and how
those who fight will be honoured by everyone after it has finished. Wilfred
Owen differs from this view as he describes the heroes as clumsy,
fumbling. This shows they didnt get the glory and respect. In Owens
experience, solders were treated as inanimate objects. When a person
died or got injured their body was just left to rot or thrown away.
According to Owens poem they were flung in to a pile of dead bodies.
This shows that after giving your life to England you werent treated as a
hero you were thrown away like a broken toy. Fighting was presented as
lively and fun by all the propaganda. But Owen through his own
experience describes it as marching asleep. People expect fighting to be
exhilarating but it was described as dull in Owens Dulce et Decorum Est.
In The Send-Off Owen represents the melancholy, for example although
singing he describes the men as grimly gay, depicting a moment full of
depression.

The war was interrupting, pausing and ending lives of young adults. Owen
died shortly before the war ended, his life was cut short and ended
because of the war. In Dulce et decorum Est the smooth rhythm is broken
by Gas! , Gas! Quick boys Owen did this to portray how suddenly
everything can happen. The interruption of the rhythm is a metaphor for
how peoples lives were ruined. In The Send Off the initially joyful
sounding opening soon gives way to As mens are, dead.
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There was a lot of secrecy around the war mainly to hide the reality of it
all. Owens poems state the truth about wars using graphic imagery. Many
things were unknown about the war whether the soldiers would return was
a massive worry for many people across Britain around the time, Shall
they return to beatings of great bells. The answer of A few, a few, too
few for drums and wells is the honest but terrifying truth. A sending off of
all the soldiers was portrayed as a glorious but the reality is that it is
melancholy. The reason this was happening is because the picture that the

media was creating made the send off seem glorious. The secrecy of it is
shown in The Send-Off when the Lamp winked to the guard winking is a
sign of privacy this shows that there is something unknown.

Especially in Dulce et decorum the poem is based on death and the

horrors of war