How Does Owen Convey His/Her attitude to war using structure, imagery and language ?

In the poem “Dulce Et Decorum Est”, Owen has written this poem with an intention and purpose
during the war serving as a message to all citizens and people of all class and kind to really understand
the state of the soldiers during the war. After all his experiences, this poem serves with a main purpose,
which is to convey that everything you ever thought about what war was like is a lie, showing the true
reality of war.To why Owen has chosen to write this poem, we need to understand the context of the
poem.This is mainly because of the things that he saw during the war, the people, atmosphere and
emotions are the things that inspired him to write this heartfelt poem to create a long lasting impression
of war. Owen really helps bring his atmosphere of warfare to come alive to us readers, as in his eyes,
war is something that is compared to a ‘sin’ for your own good, due to the trauma and devastation that
he witnessed. This poem has an important role in society, since it is a poem that will remind us of a
devastating events that we humans made, other than being an insight to war. This poem still till today
resonates with us in the 21st century with its brutal language and imagery to help give an understanding
of what it truly was like.

In this poem, imagery is being used effectively throughout the poem, in a way that Owen helps
depict a clear visual image to the readers to understand what it was like. We can see an example of
imagery through the phrase ‘like old beggars under sacks’ just as the poem starts, as it gives an
impression to the reader of just how the soldiers look visually in terms of their current state. This simile
creates effect to the reader, showing the contrast of what people would normally see the soldiers as, as
soldiers are usually seen as strong and powerful like the guards of a country, but just from the starting
line we can see the true colours of the state of the soldiers at war. The repeating ‘b’ sound helps make it
more memorable and keeps an image to the readers from the start to the end as the image of the
soldiers ‘bent’ down and being compared to as ‘beggars’ is just unbelievable considering they
represented our country. From this line, we can see an image that lasts through the poem. Another line
that really puts them into realization can be seen from the phrase “Knock-kneed, coughing like hags we
cursed through sludge”. This sentence helps not only present an image, but also show the state of the
soldiers through their tired actions, as the phrase ‘knock-kneed’ makes us think of an injury in the legs as
it makes the soldiers feel inferior when competing in the war as it basically implies that they don’t have
the power to roam in war because of the limitations caused physically. The phrase ‘coughing like hags’ is
also an effective use of simile comparing them to an ‘old ugly women’ which to them is something not
suitable to fight in the war.