Abstract
The two texts that I am going to compare and contrast are "Dulce et Decorum Est", a poem by Wilfred Owen and "The Last Night" an extract from Charlotte Gray, novel written by Sebastian Faulks. Both recount an episode of the war, and how it really affected the people.
The aim of these two texts is to tell people about the reality of war, and they employ similar linguistic devices to achieve this purpose.
In both of them emotions and feelings are expressed through senses, such as sight, hearing or touch. For example, in "Dulce et Decorum Est", the soldiers go "lame", "blind" and "deaf". In his dream, he remembers the soldier dying before his "helpless sight". He addresses the reader by stimulating his touch "If [...] you too could pace", sight "[If you could] watch the white eyes" and hearing "If you could hear the blood". This renders the memory more vivid and realistic, and makes the narrator seem more human. It also includes the reader in the poem, by ascertaining that he would feel the same way were he there and therefore influences his opinion.
