Owen when writing wants to bring emotions up that are normally not touched. So Owen uses words that purposely touch your feelings: “Obscene as cancer.” The word obscene brings a lot of negative connotation. When you hear obscene you’ll normally think of something that you did that was so intolerable that you couldn’t talk about it. So Owen wants the reader to understand that war is so wrong that you shouldn’t talk about it. Cancer as it is now, is not as a terrible word but it still has a negative connotation. If someone has cancer you give the family your condolences cause it is a very terrible thing to have. So the war is something you need to be sensitive about with the families that have children in the war. Owen tries throughout the poem to make it more personal so your emotions are more caring. So when Owen says “My friend”he is trying to make relations with you so you get more of a personal feel from the rest of the writing. So he uses language that will make you feel comfortable and bring you more into the story so that you get the full affect of what he is trying to