Year 12 – Standard English - HSC Exam question – 2010…
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In your answer you will be assessed on how well you:

·  demonstrate understanding of a text’s distinctive qualities and how these shape meaning organise,

·  develop and express ideas using language appropriate to audience, purpose

and form

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How does ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ introduce us to the important ideas in Owen’s poetry?

UNPACK THE QUESTION:

HOW = WHAT LANGUAGE FORMS AND FEATURES ARE USED BY OWEN IN DULCE ET DECORUM EST

IMPORTANT = Significant / central / chief / main / essential / key

IDEAS = concerns / themes / assumptions / values / beliefs / attitudes / concepts / experiences

REWRITE THE QUESTION with words that you understand. This way you will…

·  Figure out what your thesis statement will be

·  know what you have to “do” – and

·  what evidence/quotes your answer will include

In Dulce et Decorum Est, what language forms and features are used by Wilfred Owen to draw together (combine, link, make connections, group, join, match) the central concerns of his poetry?

Central concerns* of Dulce et decorum est / quotes that matches/proves the central concern / List all the language features / What is the effect of these language features
War was not “sweet and honourable” for the soldiers who were fighting at the front.
In war – soldiers lose their identity and become one of thousands of faceless and nameless individuals
The suffering of Innocence of children / “incurable sores on innocent tongues” / ·  Contrasting images
·  Metaphor “innocent tongues”
Not all soldiers die heroic deaths / “In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.” / ·  Change from plural inclusive 1st person narrative voice to singular 1st person narrative voice
·  High modality = “in ALL my dreams”
·  Repetition of present continuous verbs of suffering “guttering, choking, drowning”
Government propaganda should not be blindly trusted
“Civilised” social customs are lost on the battlefield – reducing men to suffer shame and indignity
A poor understanding of political language (jargon) can result in the innocent public agreeing to do something that they don’t really understand / “Dulce at decorum est, pro patria mori” / Latin / Latin was the language of the educated and powerful upper-class. Less educated people would not completely understand the meaning of the quote… and they would not question its authority.

ANNOTATE THE POEM…

SOME OF THEM HAVE BEEN DONE FOR YOU ALREADY. YOU NEED TO ANNOTATE THE “KEY LINES” rather than every-single-LFF-you-can-find…

DULCE ET DECORUM EST(1)

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmet just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime. . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

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,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918