Do you think that the speaker of owen’s poem would agree with the sentiment expressed in the title of the poem (“it is sweet and right to die for one's country.”)? support your answer with textual evidence.

The speaker of Owen’s poem is keenly aware of the agony that soldiers undergo during the war. He also acknowledges the waste of life that war represents:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,  

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge…

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…

By using appalling but accurate images of suffering, the speaker emphasizes the futility of war. He makes readers visualize what it is like to be in the midst of the fighting:  

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,

At the end of the poem, the speaker directly challenges the morality of fighting for one's country in a war.

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.

His words imply that war is not worth sustaining for causes such as political or national glory. "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" is an "old lie." This text of the poem shows that the speaker strongly disagrees with the sentiment “It is sweet and right to die for one’s country.” PLATO

hello,

your answer is a) the metaphor suggests that the poetic themes are serious and dark.

collins is comparing the poem to a dark room. he is suggesting that the poems theme is serious and wants you to understand it. you don't need to understand the poet in order to understand the poem. you also don't need to move around while reading it. he is simply saying the poem has a dark and serious theme.

- i.a -