In Dulce Et Decorum Est Wilfred Owen makes war seem horrific. When describing the soldiers, he says ‘Coughing like old hags’. From this we can see that he is implying that the young soldiers have become old and ill. Furthermore when describing the soldiers caught out without a gas mask during a gas attack, he says ‘the white eyes writhing in his face ’. He describes the soldiers death in graphic detail as he writes that he can hear ‘the blood, come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud ’. From these two quotes we can see that the wounded are going to suffer and die. The language he has used is extremely disturbing. These injuries even caused nightmares as he says, ‘In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, he plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.’
Within his poem, Owen uses many poetic devices and techniques. He makes use of alliteration, assonance, imagery, metaphors, similes, iambic pentameters, enjambment, meter, onomatopoeia, personification, 1st person, repetition, rhyme and stanzas.
He makes use of alliteration when he says, ‘Knock-Kneed’ which suggests that the soldiers are crippled from their exertions. Also he uses it when saying ‘watch the white eyes writhing.’ In this line he is trying to describe the soldiers' eyes as though they are attempting to exit their sockets. Also he practises the