It is obvious to the reader that the man did not go to war on the basis of King and country and to fight the guilty enemy. Instead, it was for the image; “girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim”. It was apparent that he went to war because of impressing women which meant he could parade his appeal of being brave because he was in the army. However, it later becomes apparent to him as he returned from duty that “women’s eye’s passed from him”. This shows the reader that no women cared for him since he had tragic injuries from the horrific carnage of the war.
The contrast between past and present is used throughout the whole poem of “Disabled”. The past was when he was not disabled and before he went to fight in the Great War. The existing time which the poem was set in was when the man came back from war disabled. A great example of this is the quotation “He thought he’d better join – He wonders why.” The man joined because almost everyone was volunteering, including his friends. This was therefore a fashionable thing to do; being classed as an adventure rather than a dangerous crusade. However, once he came back from the fighting he could not understand why someone would volunteer to be put under such torture. This confusion is noticed by the reader as he asks questions to them due to what he had been through. The man was also conscious about his present state of body because before the war he was normal:
“After the matches, carried shoulder-high.” Nevertheless, after the war the poem says “He sat in a wheeled chair” The man preferred to reminisce over the able body which he once had. The way which Owen compares the past with the present, makes the reader commiserate with the man in the poem.
The man, before the war, comes across as joining the war effort for superficial reasons; “Someone had said he’d look a god in kilts”. This quotation was used to “please his Meg,” most likely his girlfriend at the time. This makes the reader think about how mentally damaging it must be to loose his legs just because he looked good in a kilt. It was such inconsequential comments which made this person go to war and then come back a cripple.
In the fourth stanza it becomes apparent to the reader that Owen has made the point of saying that the child was under age; “He asked to join/Smiling they wrote his lie: aged nineteen years”. He had also aged emotionally once he came back, “And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race”. From being hindered from such a young age the reader can only feel sorry for the boy that went through so much in such a short space of time during the war. Owen also portrays the British Army as being an organisation of deceivers because they let the boy go to war and they told the British people that it would be over by Christmas.
When the young man left to go to war he was greeted with great admiration, “he was drafted out with drums and cheers”. However when he returned “Some cheered him home, but as crowds cheer Goal.” This is another ambiguous quotation because it means that when he came back the cheers were not the same as if someone scored a goal. Nevertheless the man is also reminding the reader of the time when he used to play football and how he got cheered by people in an ecstatic manner. This is extremely depressing to the reader because they know that football was a very large part of his life: “It was after football, when he’d drunk a peg” and to have no legs after the Great War was just a tragic thought. He still wishes for the attention which he once had because he asks questions, almost begging to the reader “Why don’t they come”. This is because the girls are not coming to the hospital and people aren’t looking after him because he is useless.
Owen said this about all his poems” My subject is war and the pity of war”. This idea of pity explains that there is a contrast between the past and present throughout the poem this is how the reader recognises his pain from being normal in the past and suffering from the effects of war in the present.
