"Dulce et Decorum est", is the poem by Wilfred Owen, written to display the terrible conditions of the First World War, and to increase awareness of it. Owen uses many writing techniques to get across his message, in the most affective way. In the opening stanza, Owen uses alliteration for the first few lines "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, knock-kneed, coughing like old hags, we cursed through sludge." This introduces you to the soldiers, as helpless, and weak, and gives the words more emphasis, making them stand out to be significant. Assonance was also used in these lines, in "cursed through sludge", which ties the words together very well, and highlights the more important ones. The short sentences used give the poem a slow pace in the first stanza, which adds to the effect, by making it sound crawling, like the soldiers. The ordered rhyme scheme...