“There was an artist silly from his face, for it was younger then his youth, now he is old”
This verse tells me that he is younger then he looks but maybe the verse has another meaning to it. I think that since now he has nothing to do he feels older then he actually is.
“He’s lost his colour very far from here”
This verse tells us that he is a very different person now, he feels as though he does not fit in anymore, like he belongs to some distant world. Even though he feels as though he does not fit in to place because of the war, there could be other reasons that contributed to this such as
- The fact that girls reject him
- And now he has no friends as before he did
The poem goes on to tell how there was a time when he liked being rough and beaten up,
“One time he liked a blood smear down his leg”
“After the matches, carried shoulder high”
This verse to me shows that he was a very sporting person. It goes on to tell us that he was used being injured and the fact that he was carried shoulder high might be because either he was the hero of the match and they carried him off the pitch shoulder high or that he was so badly injured that they had to carry him off shoulder high.
“He thought he’d better join”
It is at this point that the poem gets in to a turning point, from describing the good things of his life, to kind of pin point the exact moment, to one wrong decision, that will turn his life in to a nightmare.
This is the point in the poem when he starts to think why he joined
“He wonders why, some-one had said he’d look a god in kilts”
This shows that he is easily persuadable in to doing something as long as someone compliments the way he will look while he is doing it. The verse below shows that he did not even think it through
“German he scarcely thought of”
“And no fear of fear came yet”
This verse clearly states that he had no idea what he was getting himself into, because he did not know, or even think of, the dangers of war until it was too late which I think the word “yet” was put in.
All he thought of was
“Jewelled hilts, for dagger in plaid socks”
All he ever though of before leaving for the war was about his new suit and how nice he would look in them.
He was drafted out
“He was drafted out with drums and cheers”
This to me was probably the whole reason of joining the war, to let people see him in kilts and led him to believe that if he returned home he would get the same treatment.
But ever since he got off the airplane he realised how things had changed
“Some cheered him home, but not as crowds that cheered goal”
This verse tells us that he was thrown by surprise because the crowd was not as big as it was when he left and probably this was the starting point when he started to feel left out, in fact the next verse states that there was no crowd
“Only a solemn man who brought him fruits thanked him; and then enquired about his soul”
The last paragraph describes what he thinks the rest of his life is going to be like
“Now, he will spend a few sick years in institutes”
“And do what rules consider wise”
This verse shows that he is not as free as he was in the past, where as before he used to live life to the max and now he has to think about what he has to do from now on.
But probably the biggest thing that upsets him is the way the women treat him now – as if like they don’t know him
“Tonight he noticed how the woman’s eyes passed from him to the strong men that are whole”
This to us shows why the women don’t find him attractive anymore because the fact that he doesn’t have a whole body. The way the verse starts to me is intriguing, because before the women used to look at him because he was attractive but now they look at him because of pity and he isn’t used to other people taking what we call – his limelight.
The poem ends off in an interesting
“Why don’t they come?”
This verse puts him in a state of desperation, it is used as an expression to show us that he is trying to stand up, trying to stand out, showing everyone that their favourite boy has returned home but the sad thing is that no-one listening.
Deadbeat
This poem describes the exhaustion of fighting in the Great War.
“He dropped - more sullenly then wearily”
This is the opening verse of the poem. It describes a soldier who is exhausted from fighting. The fact that he drops more sullenly then wearily shows that he dropped all of a sudden to everyone else’s surprise.
He was so tired that
“And none of us can kick him to his feet”
“Just blinked at my revolver, blearily”
This shows us the mental stage the soldier is at because the soldier is finding this way to hard death will be of ease to him.
The verse below states the feelings of what the soldier is going through
“I’ll do ‘em in” “if this hands spared, I’ll murder them, I will”
This shows that the soldier has had enough, he wants it to end now and basically is trying to say that it Aint worth going through al the pain and suffering to fight for his country. It also states how dangerous the war was to; the fact that he said if this hands spared goes to show that it was more like a public massacre then a normal war that we are used to seeing today.
“Dreaming of all the valiant; that aren’t dead”
This again shows the mentality of the soldier. It says that he has basically given up on fighting the war but he is still on their side. In his mind he is dead so therefore he has given up in reality.
The poem ends off in a peculiar way
“The scum you sent last night died. Hooray”
This verse to me is interesting. It shows us that the soldiers that did take part and finished the war were disgusted in the soldiers that just simply gave up, this is why they called him “The Scum”, but at the end of the sentence they seemed to glorify the soldiers death. Why did they do that? Did they hate him that much? Or was the sufferings of the war so great that they all wanted to be in his shoes? And wished that they were dead.
Overall I think that Wilfred Owen succeeded very well in describing the sufferings of soldiers during the war. Verses like
“He’ll never feel a girls waists again”
or the constant references of soldiers wanting to die shows us the true suffering and hard fighting and living conditions of the so-called Great War.
