Wilfred owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, 
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, 
Till on the haunting flares(2) we turned our backs 
And towards our distant rest(3) began to trudge. 
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots 
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; 
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots(4)  
Of tired, outstripped(5) Five-Nines(6) that dropped behind.
Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling, 
Fitting the clumsy helmets(8) just in time; 
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, 
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime(9) . . . 
Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light, 
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. 
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, 
He plunges at me, guttering,(11) choking, drowning. 
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace 
Behind the wagon that we flung him in, 
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, 
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; 
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood 
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, 
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud(12)  
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, 
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest(13)  
To children ardent(14) for some desperate glory, 
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est 
Pro patria mori.(15)

Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918

Wilfred Owen uses careful chosen words to convey the pain and suffering of the weary soldiers.

There is not a clearly defined structure to the poem, although Owen does make use of rhyme, mostly on alternate line endings.

The poem opens with a description of trench life and the conditions faced by the soldiers. Then comes the gas attack, and the poem offers a graphic description of the effects of such an attack.The opening stanza is characterised by language about 'fatigue': the soldiers 'marched asleep', they 'trudge', and 'limped on'. They are 'deaf', 'lame' and 'blind'; all rather pitiful language intended to reveal the reality of war and its effects.

The speaker describes a vision in a dream of a gas victim 'guttering, choking, drowning'. The listed verbs are associated with a lack of air and death.

The language used in the sections depicting the gas attack is strong, representing both the anguish of the victims of the gas attack as well as the effect on those haunted by what they have seen: 'watch the white eyes writhing in his face, / His hanging face'. The repetition of the word 'face' makes it clear which element disturbs the speaker most: the transformation in the face of the victim. The use of alliteration on the 'w' sound reflects the agonised twisting of the gas victim.

The opening of the poem suggests Owen pities the state to which the soldiers have fallen. Instead of youthful, strong fighters they are 'Bent double', 'Knock-kneed, coughing like hags'. Owen's imagery presents the men as prematurely old and weakened. War has broken these men, and they are described in the most unglamorous, inglorious manner. Owen's bitterness at this transformation is obvious.

Owen's disillusionment with war is also clear from the closing lines of the poem. After describing the horrifying effects of the gas attack he addresses the reader:

'My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie'

He is rejecting the accepted attitude back at home that serving your country in war is glorious. He is critical of the 'high zest', or great enthusiasm, used to convince men to go to war. He sees war as brutal and wasteful of young lives. His choice of the word 'children' is also significant; impressionable young men are almost lured to war by the promise of 'desperate glory'.

Futility

Move him into the sun—
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it awoke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds—
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved,—still warm,—too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?

Futility is written in 14 lines like a sonnet. It is not structured like one though. This poem has two seven-line stanzas.

The two-stanza structure reflects the poem's change in tone, from hope and confidence to despair.

The poem begins with a statement that suggests an action happening now. The sun is seen as something positive. The second stanza begins with a different statement. The narrator is no longer thinking of the man who is dying but life and death generally. We can therefore work out that the man has died and the sun has made no difference. The sun then becomes the object of the poet's anger.

The title of the poem is blunt, simple and strong. The poem is going to be very clear and straightforward. We can call this 'bleak realism' – he is being direct about his grief and anger.

Imagery

The key image is the sun. In the first stanza this is a positive force and the imagery is all about waking up. Words such as "move him", "gently", "whispering","rouse" all suggest a soft, motherly force. The sun is "kind" and "old".

In the second stanza the image of the sun becomes negative. This is expressed in the expression "cold star". The contradiction between the star, which is hot, and the description "cold" is called an oxymoron. This shows that the sun may be literally warm but it has no feelings. It does not care that it creates life only to watch it die. The image also reminds us that people, when dead, go cold. Instead of the "kind old sun", all the poet can now see is "fatuous sunbeams" working away. "Fatuous" means 'stupid but thinking you are clever'.

Sounds

The half-rhymes bring the poem together. For example in stanza one sun-sown, once-France.

There are full rhymes (snow-know and tall-all) at the ends of the stanzas. By creating a pattern of rhymes that are not exact, however, he is expressing a sense of broken harmony beneath a seemingly strong surface.

Attitudes, themes and ideas

The poem is an elegy – something written to remember someone who has died. Traditionally these are long poems that list the great deeds of the dead person. In contrast, Owen's poem is short and compact. There is no reason to celebrate a life. There is no hope anywhere. Life is 'futile'. The poem about his friend becomes an elegy for all mankind.

The anger comes through personal knowledge of the dead man's peaceful past. It is made much stronger by the way Owen uses metaphors to apply this to all life. For example "fields half-sown" which refers both to the farm the dead man grew up on and the soldiers being cut down in battle like corn at harvest-time.

Owen does not reach any conclusions in the poem (this too would be futile). Instead he expresses his anger in a series of rhetorical questions at the end (lines 11, 12 and 13/14). He is angry not just at war or the sun but at the whole of Creation as well.