Suicide in the Trenches and Dulce Et Decorum Est Both by Wilfred Owen

In the poems Suicide in the Trenches and Dulce et Decorum est both by Wilfred Owen the poet has a very important message to convey to the reader. These poems are written about the horrors of World War I which Owen, the poet, experienced, fighting for Britain on the front line. Owen develops his significant ideas to the reader through a variety of techniques in the two poems, including the rhythm and rhyming scheme, contrast, the imagery and words used and the structure of the poems.

Suicide in the Trenches is about a “simple soldier boy” who is happy but ends up committing suicide because of the horrors of the war. Owen creates impact in this poem through the rhythm and rhyming scheme. The first stanza talks about the soldier boy’s innocence and happiness. The rhyming scheme is aa, bb, cc. This creates along with the words a bouncy, cheerful rythm. “I knew a simple soldier boy / who grinned at life in empty joy”. The effect of this is that it creates the feeling of reading a nursery rhyme to the reader. In fact the first stanza could be a nursery rhyme. The reader feels the soldier’s childlike innocence and sweet naivety.

In the second stanza Owen keeps the same rhyme scheme which contrasts with the stanza’s words and creates huge impact. The rhythm is the same, a strong nursery rhyme feel, creating a childlike naivety. But the words tell a different story. Owen tells of the awfulness of the war as from the trenches. He talks of “crumps”, “lice” and “cowed” as oppose to “whistling early with the lark” in the first stanza. This contrast is most noticeable in the last line of the stanza “he put a bullet through his brain”. The alliteration of the b sounds and the simple rhythm create a catch happy tone which is so inappropriate for the meaning of the line. This contrast creates an element of shock and horror to the reader. It shows how strongly Owen feels about his message of how terrible war is. The tone Owen gives the poem makes the reader feel strong emotion for this “simple soldier boy” for who the war is too devastating to bear, so he commits suicide.

After this shock in the second stanza, Wilfred Owen articulates his strong feelings in the third stanza. He addresses the reader saying “You smug faced crowd”. Owen implies that the “crowd” he talks of are ignorant because the cheer “soldier lads” going off to war, the same war Owen describes in a strong metaphor as “the hell where youth and laughter go”. This powerful last line chills the reader and finishes the poem off with Owen important message effectively conveyed to them. Just as the innocent and happy tone created in the first and second verses is inappropriate for the situation so is the cheering of the crowds inappropriate considering the crowds are cheering the “soldier lads” off to “the hell where youth and laughter go”. Owen feels that the crowds cheering for soldiers is so unsuitable and wrong because