What is a motif in the poem, Dulce Et Decorum Est (Owen)?

One of the main motifs, or recurring ideas, in “Dulce et Decorum Est” is asphyxiation. Referring to a lack of oxygen that can lead to death, moments of asphyxiation or suffocation are present in each of the poem’s four stanzas to greater or lesser degrees. Because unobstructed access to oxygen is critically important to the life of a human body, this motif points to one of the chilling ways that war destroys the human capacity to live.