‘Disabled’ by Wilfred Owen
Sophie Thompson
Wilfred Owen (1893 – 1918) was caught in a shell blast in 1917 and was sent back to England with shell shock. His poem ‘Disabled’ was written during his four-month stay at Craiglockhart Hospital in 1917. The poem sends its readers on a journey into the life of a World War One soldier after he has returned home from the war. The poem eloquently depicts the disassociation and detachment from self and society by his soldier who has become disabled.
The first stanza sets a very sad and sombre tone as the disabled man is reflecting on his waste of life. The opening phrase ‘He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,’ is a very stark and arresting opening as we immediately gain knowledge that the man is in a wheel chair, the reader visualizes a physically disabled man using a wheel chair. The man is introduced as ‘waiting for dark,’ it can be implied that ‘dark’ is a symbolic representation of impending doom or death and having a meaning of pessimism. It gives the reader the impression this boy has been separated from society so much so that all he has to look forward to is death. The following phrase ‘And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey’ we see how the ‘grey’ ‘legless’ suit symbolises his bland and dull life and now a complete contrast to the colourful life he once lead. In the phrase ‘Through the park, Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn’ the use of a simile is used to emphasise sympathy for the man as he is saddened when he reflects on the past when he was a boy. This allows the reader to visualize the boys roaming the park. We can see the boy’s melancholy behaviour as well as hear their voices saddening with each passing moment. The use of the words ‘ghastly’ and ‘saddened like a hymn’ are used by Owen to create a dull and depressing mood which the soldier is experiencing. The use of the word ‘hymn’ uses religious implications to convey the theme of death at a funeral. Using the words ‘dark’ and ‘park’ Owen uses rhyme to convey the change in the introduction to the physical setting of the poem. In the following phrase ‘Voices of play and pleasure after day’ alliteration is used to emphasise the happiness and joyfulness the changed young soldier will never feel. In the phrase ‘Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him’ imagery is used not for the disabled boy but is used to describe the other children. This makes the reader feel that the young soldier is separated from the children. Childlike connotations ‘play’ ‘mothered’ are used to convey the sense of his joyful past.
