What line does the poem Dulce et Decorum Est condemn?

• A. Propaganda about patriotism
• B. The glory of war
• C. The reality of soldiers' suffering
• D. The duty to serve one's country

Answer: (A)

The line being condemned is the idea that dying for one’s country is sweet and honorable—a piece of patriotic propaganda. Wilfred Owen labels that notion “the old Lie” and counters it with stark, graphic images of soldiers suffering in a gas attack. By presenting the brutal reality of war, he shows that the claim about patriotism and sacrifice is a misleading romance rather than a truth. The battle here isn’t against the reality of painful experiences itself, but against the idea that those horrors are noble or glorious. The other themes—the suffering that war causes or the sense of duty to serve—are part of the poem’s texture, but they aren’t the line the poem is targeting; the central target is the propaganda that sanitizes or glorifies war as patriotic.