In the early days of August 1914 riots of merriment could be heard across Britain as a sign of great enthusiasm from the newly proclaimed war campaign. This tumult of war pleasure is strongly challenged by Wilfred Owen's poems Dulce Et Decorum Est and Mental Cases, as it presents harrowing images of war at the time and also challenges the reader's view of the glorification of war. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay First, Owen illustrates the true side of the war in Dulce Et Decorum Est by describing an action of a nearby soldier as "[diving] towards me, gutters, suffocation, drowning" as if to appeal to the reader with emotional language that helps influence the reader's opinion of the difficulties of the battle, in this case how desperate the soldiers are and how Owen states that he made no great attempt on his part to save the soldier, as if this event is illustrated as if it became a normal day for men. With this development of the reader's emotional response. Furthermore, Owen increases the value of the harrowing imagery by asking the reader “if [he] could feel every gasp, blood gargled from foam-corrupted lungs.” With this use of direct vocative language Owen allows the reader to feel an attack on their own opinion, having been envisaged by Owen as being linked to the celebration of war which Owen sees as a form of indoctrination by the state. Furthermore, in Mental Cases Owen demonstrates the absence of emotion and life by acknowledging that the soldiers act like "shadows of purgatory", reinforcing the idea of ​​loss of purpose. As a result of this use of symbolism, it contributes to the idea of ​​conflict in the minds of the soldiers. Owen also highlights this idea with the description of “chasms gouged around their eye sockets,” underscoring the idea of ​​shifting emotion and purpose. “Gouged” is key here as it is a powerful mood-enhancing modifier adjective that implies restlessness but also indirectly refers to the described soldiers' wounds that were assumed to be deep in form, further emphasizing the atrocities of the war. “Gouged” can also refer to the loss of consciousness and intellect as if robbed of them, consequently representing the loss of sanity. In Dulce Et Decorum Est, Owen also shows death through the use of euphemisms, describing the soldiers who begin to "trudge towards [their] distant rest", this euphemism is effective as it creates a discreet contradiction with the expectation of war in persevering to avoid one's death. This implies an atmosphere of temptation as the soldiers are so distraught and tired physically and mentally that they almost welcome death. Another reason to note for their behavior is the idea that the average expected time to be alive was a few days. This excerpt is also useful as it also highlights how waiting for the soldiers to die is more terrifying than death itself as Owen describes waiting for death as a “path” and how “distant” the “rest” is. Furthermore Owen is shown as a representative of the soldiers in the poem as he talks about the horrors he himself saw and how they interacted with him. This idea is supported when he mentions a man "under the sea; who is drowning." This metaphor is effective as it supports the setting as it shows the horror of the soldiers suffocated by their own blood and the gas introduced by the enemy. With these excerpts Owen vividly describes the process of dying]"..