Owens poem serves to uncover the lie that "it is sweet and becoming to die for ones country." Owen's use of diction, vivid language, and graphic imagery emphasizes his point. The poem describes the fatigue, blindness, evil, obscenity, death, sufferings, and disgust of war. It shows the true life of a soldier, lying low, ill, endlessly trudging through mud with bloody feet, away from and into the pain of gas poisoning of comrades, and away from the injured and dead, but never away from the memories. It ends with a bitter attack on those who see glory in the death of others.The only beauty in this poem is an idea that rest will come. Unfortunately, it is pointed out that the only rest is an undignified death; for those who sleep, sleep restlessly. The ugliness of war is described as low "like old beggars under sacks", diseased "coughing like hags", "blood-shod. All went lame, all blind", exhausting "drunk with fatigue", pointless "floundring . . . Dim . . As under a green sea . . . drowning", careless of living or dead "flung" aside, evil "like a devils sick of sin", disgusting like "eyes writhing . . . blood gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs. . . vile, incurable sores", "bitter as the cud", and merciless "on innocent tongues."The comparisons of lines 1, 14, 20, and 23 through 24, describe the soldier as someone the reader can see and war as the disease Owen wants the inexperienced to understand.1Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,14As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.20 His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;This places the reader in the soldiers placedrowning, stumbling, and fumbling--and shows the lack of glory in war. These lines tell the reader what a man becomes once he has been to warless than an admirable human, drowned in evil deeds, and emotionless.Lines 23 and 24 give war a character. 23 Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud24 Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--They create a...
