Unless You Were There

“Unless You Were There”

“Dulce et Decorum Est” is considered to be one of the most popular poems written by Wilfred Owen during World War I. Owen was able to write this poem from a firsthand frontline perspective. This poem went through several versions before Owen felt that it fully described war through the eyes of a soldier, his own eyes. “Dulce et Decorum Est” strives to show that war is not just about heroes, bravery, and fighting for freedom or what is right, but that war has a dark side as well. This dark side is only really known in its entirety to those who are on the frontlines. Owen wants this poem to show people who are for the war and people that try to portray the war in various ways, that you can’t really know what war is like unless you were there. Each stanza of this poem serves to show the reader that the actual experience of being in the war is far more valuable in the interpretation of what goes on in a war then just being on the outside looking in and writing about it.

The first stanza of this poem seeks to show that being a soldier isn’t as revered and rewarding as it is portrayed as. “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, knock-kneed, coughing like hags…” (Owen) certainly doesn’t sound like a well dressed in shape soldier that is ready to go into battle. These soldiers are so far past the point of exhaustion that they are doubled over in an effort to continue walking. They have fallen ill in the conditions of their surroundings but keep going in order to reach somewhere that they may safely rest. “Deaf even to the hoots of tired, outstripped Five-Nines..” (Owen) shows that the soldiers have become so immune to their surroundings that even noises that signify harm to them and their comrades don’t even cause a reaction in them now. As the reader is going through this first stanza it creates a very vivid mental picture of the soldier’s surroundings but doesn’t fully able the reader to feel as the soldier’s are feeling. To many reading this it sounds like a good summary of how war is for people that are in it but surely cannot make the reader feel the same way as the soldiers do.

The second stanza of the poem starts off with panic and a very quick rise to action. These soldiers need to get their gas masks on or they will not survive. At this point in the poem the reader notices the sense of urgency that gas attacks brings to these soldiers. Each one hurries to put on their mask so that they may live to make it to the point where they can rest. The reader is unable to feel that sense of panic, the one that makes a pit in your stomach, that these soldiers feel the second someone yells gas to signal the few precious seconds they have to save their own lives. Then the speaker notices with horror that one of the men was unable to put his mask on in time. This man is slowly dying right in front of his comrades and there is really nothing that they can do. The reader wonders why they don’t try to help him, but in a moment like that on a battlefield it comes time for yourself to come before your comrades. That may be very hard for the reader to understand but try living with the guilt these soldiers will live with after watching their fellow soldier perish. “The speaker needs to separate himself from the drowning man, but cannot simply do so, both because of his inevitable sympathy for him and also, I will suggest, because there is a strong suggestion even that he needs to protect himself physically from him.” (Hughes) This further shows that sometimes you really have to put yourself first even when it makes you feel your worst because you are overcome with guilt. This guilt becomes very evident in the next two lines, “In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, he plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.” (Owen) The speaker will never be able to forgive himself for being unable to help save his fellow soldier and he will be forever haunted by that moment in his dreams. Unless the reader has a firsthand experience