Soldiers deserve the utmost respect, but they deserve it for the right reasons. They give up their lives to protect their country. Giving up your life means giving up time with your families, giving up some freedoms, and sometimes it might even mean giving up your mental health. Owen was one of the first poets to present a different image of the war through his poem "Dulce Et Decorum Est", as Lutz said: "Generally considered the stet poet of the First World War, Wilfred Owen broke with many of the literary conventions of of war in his poetry”. Most literature did not provide day-to-day accounts of the war, but instead told the larger story, “where conventional writing of the Great War in newspapers, novels and official histories tended to involve crowds and nations”. Society just wanted to show the great things of war and leave out the everyday conflicts. In the poem “Dulce Et Decorum Est” Owen wants to show that war is much more gruesome than literature has previously described. Say no to plagiarism tailored on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Owen wanted to use this poem to change society's view on war. Most literature of the early 1900s told only what society wanted to see from soldiers. They didn't want to see pain and death, just soldiers standing, saluting the flag and winning the war. This soldier is someone society can look up to, praise and encourage. Owen uses “Dulce Et Decorum Est” to show some of the hardships the soldiers went through every day: “The men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots." Owen uses the entire first verse just to show that the soldiers had been through so much, that nothing bothered them anymore, “Drunk with toil; deaf even to the whistles / Of the disappointed grenades that fell behind”. The soldiers were so tired that they didn't even care that the bombs and guns were firing right behind them. This state of horror of war was Owen's view, and it is what he wanted society to see before telling their children that they must die for their country, “Dulce et decorum est/ Pro patria mori.” The tone and mood that the speaker portrays in this poem are both very negative. These two elements are very similar in that they both involve emotions, but the difference lies in who feels those emotions. The speaker addresses the society that encourages its children to join the war. He is angry that literature has not provided the full picture of war, yet it is still encouraged. The tone of “Dulce Et Decorum Est” is very depressing and aggressive. This poem is first person "we cursed through the mud", it emphasizes the point of showing that he went through the war, he was not just a spectator. Since the topic is personal, it would make sense for the tone to be very aggressive. The speaker is angry that society lies to young children. He uses aggressive words and phrases throughout the poem and ends by talking about children. He begins the poem in a depressing tone by talking about what the soldiers experienced day to day. He quickly changes his tone by speeding it up: “Gas! Gas! Quick, guys!”. The vibe is very similar to the tone. The atmosphere could change for each reader, but with “Dulce Et Decorum Est” there wasn't much room for guessing. Since no one had given society a real look at what war was like, this poem was very surprising and sad. The way the speaker used tone and mood in this poem gives a very negative sound towards thewar. The form of a poem can add a lot of character to it. In “Dulce Et Decorum Est” the author used the form to reiterate the point he is trying to make. Although the shape is a very subtle element, it can help make an impact without the reader realizing it. “Dulce Et Decorum Est” is divided into four different stanzas. The first stanza has eight lines, the second has six lines, the third has two lines, and the last stanza has twelve lines. Each stanza has a specific purpose towards the poem and creates a different atmosphere from the previous one. In the first verse Owen creates a sad and depressing atmosphere by lengthening the lines and widening the words: "Knock-kneed, coughing like witches, we cursed through the mud." The second stanza creates a more emotional feeling in the reader by speeding it up, adding exclamations, and using smaller words. Since the third verse is so short, it comes as a surprise. The fourth verse concludes everything by combining everything to demonstrate that the war does not correspond to the image that society has spread. The other important factor about this poem is that it is structured like a story. We start at the beginning and the reader proceeds along with the story. The reader hears the story in the order it happened. This form of the story makes poetry easier to read, people learn as children to read stories. People will also relate more to a story; they tend to relate to the characters. In the lines where the soldiers moved quickly, the reader feels that they too need to speed up, “putting on their clumsy helmets just in time.” The form of this poem helps create a physical image of what Owen is trying to demonstrate. Owen uses sound to incorporate emotion into his poetry. In the first verse he creates a very slow sound which in turn creates a sad emotion. He produces this slow sound by using larger, hyphenated words like "knock-kneed" and "blood-shod." Owen also uses long vowels to make him sound slower. Use slow-sounding phrases, "we cursed in the mud" and "we began to trudge." The author then quickly changes the sound to a much faster and more exciting sound, which changes the reader's mood or emotion to excitement. He goes from long lines straight to quick words: “Of disappointed bullets that fell behind/Gas! Gas!". Owen uses this difference in sound to show the reader that in war everything can change in the blink of an eye. Towards the end of the poem, the sound conveys an angrier emotion to the reader. He shows this anger through choice of the words, “writhe…devil…cancer, bitter.”The author uses this anger to show that society has lied about what war is really like. Even the images the author uses in “Dulce Et Decorum East" are essential to the point he is trying to demonstrate. Owen wants to destroy the image that society has given to soldiers and war. From the beginning he gives a different image of the soldier, “bent double, like old beggars” . This image in the very first line of the poem completely destroys the typical image of a soldier standing in a straight line attentively. Owen uses the dream image several times: “In all my dreams…though in some suffocating dreams ". He compares the image of a nightmare to war. Then, Owen uses the image of someone drowning to describe a soldier suffocated by gas. These images give the reader a little taste of what it was like for this gas-choked soldier and what it was like to watch him, “He dives towards me, dripping, choking, drowning.” Owen also used strong words to describe the war with images such as “choking…devil…cancer…vile.” While he may not have directly connected these words to the war itself, all of these words create images for the reader, and therefore the reader will put into7