An analysis of the poem “Asleep”

In the poem “Asleep”, Wilfred Owen links sleep to death. The one word title of the poem depicts a scene of soldiers dying quietly and slowly, It is ironic that the word has only two short syllables and is pronounced lightly without stressing any of them, actually suggests such a heavy, serious theme—death. The poem opens with “under his helmet, up against his pack…work and waking”, suggesting to us their long battles and sufferings, not for just one day or two days, but “many days”. In the next line, “sleep took…death took”, Owen make a direct comparison or rather, describe a process of how the soldiers died when they fell asleep. We notice that “him” is made the subject that is taken by “sleep” and “death” which are personified ( a sense of dominance), suggesting that the soldiers going through the war is greatly victimized by it. The “aborted life” in the next line pictured a dying baby in the womb, this idea parallels to the idea of the soldiers dying in their sleep. The “chest”, “arms” and “blood” (parts of the body) are personified. For instance, the arms are like humans, feeling “sleepy” and have the human tendency to fall “slack”, together with the blood been described as “stray” and “came creeping”, and the simile that compares the flowing of the blood to the “ants on track”, suggesting how slowly and torturous the death of the soldiers are. The fragment descriptions of the body parts come together to give us a wholesome picture of slow death of the soldiers in the war.

Join now!

In the second stanza, Owen questioned the meaning of death. “Whether his deeper sleep lie shaded by the shaking of great wings…or whether yet his thin and sodden head….” The two questions served as a direct comparison between the illusion that one is honored and blessed to die for his country and the reality and callousness of the war that  they died miserably without any dignity in the war. The “great wings” is referred to the propaganda used by the authorities, the image of the wings appeared to be angelic and protective, but the fact that the soldiers are ...

This is a preview of the whole essay