Plodding through endless dung and blood, rat-infested trenches, desolation as far as the eye can see. This was the plight of many young people during the First World War. However, those beyond the inevitable confines of the battlefield knew little of the truth, as the government manipulated the media in an attempt to use the war for political purposes. Wilfred Owen, a young poet who fought in the war, wrote in opposition to pro-war propaganda poems designed to inspire young people to join the fight for their country, using a variety of linguistic features throughout his poem "Dulce et Decorum Est". to create a vivid setting that reveals the true horrors that were happening on the battlefield and that death in war is not as glorious or heroic as we were led to believe. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Owen immediately throws the reader into the intensity of war, simultaneously confronting us with images of weakness and defeat through the use of similes. In the opening stanza, he refers to the soldiers as "old beggars under sacks" who "coughed like witches." In doing so, Owen establishes the fragility and lack of heroic valor that these soldiers possess, causing the reader to feel shocked and conflicted by the apparent discordance between what they believe the soldiers to be and what is revealed to them in this first line. . By calling these soldiers "beggars" and "hags", he not only suggests that these once heroic men have now been stripped of their physical integrity, but also reduces them to discarded elements of society, and in doing so makes the reader see these soldiers as inferior beings. The diction in the first few sentences contains words like “disturbing” and “trudge.” This is a language of deprivation and impending struggle, hardly appropriate for the glory of the battlefield, which reinforces the reader's disbelief at the harsh atmosphere in which the soldiers are placed, while also uncovering the adversity and fatigue the men are encountering . The descriptive language creates a graphic setting in the reader's mind as Owen describes how "the men marched asleep" and "limped, shoeed in blood." The soldiers are wading through a sea of ​​blood and bodies, taking the reader straight into the thick trenches of war. This shocks the reader, as no one should experience something as horrific and distressing as this, causing us to reflect this horror and outrage as we sympathize with the troops as they march to seek their "distant rest." the environment continues to intensify in the second verse as the soldiers come face to face with a gas attack. However, one soldier fails to get his gas mask in time and becomes trapped in "an ecstasy of fumbling". The use of the word "ecstasy" creates a sense of trance-like frenzy as the men struggle to put on their helmets. Here the poem becomes personal and metaphorical, as we now see things through the eyes of Wilfred Owen himself. He sees the man consumed by the gas as a "drowning" man, almost as if he were underwater. 'Misty Panes' adds a disturbing element to this traumatic scene, as it makes the reader feel as if they are trapped like a window, unable to help this poor soldier, as if they too, like this dying soldier, are imprisoned in this world of shedding of blood and I can only wait for this horror to manifest itself. The extent to which these soldiers, and Owen, were truly affected by the devastation around them.