With extreme sympathy towards the youth, Owen illustrates the atrociously horrifying and jeopardous realities of war. He describes the massacre of the youth as the slaughtering of beasts with the simile “die as cattle.” This dehumanisation by Owen gives a very strong description of youth being mercilessly slaughtered. He suggests that there is extreme silence there on the battlefield except for the “Monstrous” cacophony of mechanized warfare. For instance, “the anger of guns” and the “stuttering rifles rapid rattle” personifies the violence and rage of guns to that of humans. The use of alliteration “rifles’ rapid rattle” and anaphora “Only…..rattle” adds momentum and pacing to the octet. These horrifying truths of war seem to be very violent
