.Comparison of the PoemsMental Cases and DisabledBy Wilfred Owen. Examine how the poet expresses his outrage at the effect of war

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D.Epathite                                                                                                   20/03/05

.Comparison of the Poems

Mental Cases and Disabled

By Wilfred Owen.

Examine how the poet expresses his outrage at the effect of war in

 the poems.  Look at the language he uses to convey the pain and

 hurt that war causes

I will compare the poems ‘Disabled’ and ‘Mental Cases’ for my essay.  I will look at the language that Wilfred Owen uses to convey the pain and hurt that war causes.  I will also endeavour to examine how the poet expresses his outrage at the effect of the war in both poems.  I will make a comparison between them.

Wilfred Owen was born in March 1893.  He taught on the continent until 1915, when he enlisted after visiting a hospital for wounded soldiers.  He said that he wanted to help, either by leading the soldiers or writing to let the world know about their plight.  He achieved both.  He was killed at the front line in March 1917 aged 28, just 7 days before the armistice.

Both poems take a look at the stark realties of the war.  In ‘Mental cases’ he looks at the demolition of men’s minds, due to the horrors they witnessed, and experienced, while in the war.  ‘Disabled’ investigates the consequences of the war for a young handsome soldier. In both poems he takes a sympathetic stance towards the casualties.

 In ‘Mental Cases’ the Victims of war are explored by looking at the physiological traumas.  In ‘Disabled’ it is mainly the physical consequences that are examined. Although the notion of ‘unseen’ scars that change and destroy lives always flows through his work.


 The use of striking language through out the poems evokes horror in the reader. It leaves brutal and harsh imagery, which I feel lingers in your minds eye.  Both works start with a line involving endings of the day. A strong metaphor Wilfred Owen uses for the end of life.

‘Why they sit here in twilight’

‘Waiting for the dark’

Both create visions of a life that is over, forfeited. Lives waiting, longing, for the calm repose of death.  This is not the average Depiction of the war that most poets of this genre used. Most WW1 poetry was recording events for prosperity; they were ‘pro-motherland’ heroic chronicles. They encouraged serving and protecting your country, Making sure that the women left at home were safe, a glamorous part that all who were left behind would worship you for doing. Great propaganda for the warmongers and politicians of the time. Siegfried Sassoon was another poet who shared Owens views. In fact he encouraged Owen in his writing and introduced him to like minded writers, like Robert Graves. Graves displayed his feelings about war in a more distant but still factual way.


Wilfred Owen set out to change the perception of the whole world.  No sides were taken in his works; he confronted the reader with the real war, the dehumanising effect, the senseless agony’s and hurt that war brings.

Owen uses techniques of speech and present tense to lend urgency to his work. He constantly uses all senses, sight, sound, touch and smell. Another of the ways the author enforces the content of his work is by using alliteration rarely especially in ‘mental cases’. It would make the pace and rhythm too fast and detract from the sombre message it conveys. Owen uses onomatopoeia to strengthen the visions of horror that that he is portraying.  A good example of this is in line 16 of ‘Mental cases’

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‘Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles’

The sound of lives being torn apart, broken and wasted.

‘Baring teeth that leer like skulls teeth wicked?’

This simile forces the image of men that are lucky to be alive. Or maybe, unlucky, depending on your opinion. My personal opinion is unlucky. The use of colour features strongly in both poems, but in distinctly different ways, in ‘Mental cases’  Black is used to show us the darkness in these poor tormented soldiers minds, the darkness of blood in their  dreams and the lack of light in their lives.  In ...

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