There are many ways to get people to understand a point that is trying to be made. In Anthem for Doomed Youth and Dulce et Decorum Est Wilfred Owen uses similes, metaphors and personification to paint a vivid picture in the reader's imagination which results in a greater impact and more enlightening experience.
             In Anthem for Doomed Youth, Owen uses metaphors to show how quickly young men were dying, "...who die as cattle?" The way cattle are killed, they are corralled and then led into a slaughterhouse one by one where they are killed and then processed. Another view is that this statement is "making the men appear ignorant, senseless and helpless".
             This comparison is used to show that people were dying in mass numbers without an end in sight. He also uses metaphors to describe the sounds that we cannot hear ourselves, but with some help we can imagine them. "The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;" His metaphor recreates the high-pitched screaming that the shells made as they rained from the sky. He also uses personification to show the reader how it felt being in that situation where guns were present and ready to fire at a moments notice. "Only the monstrous anger of the guns." This leads us to think that every gun was to be feared, be it from a friend or a foe either could kill you. He continues to use personification to illustrate sounds, "Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle..." Comparing a rifle to a person that stutters is an excellent way to show the reader, using something we already have in our memory; the sound of a person that stutters is repetitive and persistent just like a gun firing rapidly.
             Owen also uses similes in Dulce Et Decorum Est to show the physical position and condition that the soldiers were in. "Bent Double, like old beggars under sacks" is used to show that they were sitting with their knees bent, arms around their legs trying to get warm; just like a beggar sleeps in an...