Perhaps it is because of the horrors they have witnessed that the ‘summer oozed into their veins, like an injected drug for their bodies’ pains’. They have been injured and damaged so severely that even the smallest ray of sunlight is well received. The sun acts as a drug would on their minds, possibly because they have had little to escape the pains of war in the previous months.
Owen then brings the reader back to the brutal and violent reality of war, as ‘sharp on their souls hung the imminent line of grass’. The grass he talks about is in no-mans land, no man’s land was the piece of land sometimes only 20 metres across which bridged the gap between the two sets of trenches on a battlefield. No man’s land was the scene of some of the most horrific aspects of war as few who set foot on the dreaded turf survived. Again, Owen stirs the reader’s emotions.
The closing line of the second stanza talks of ‘the sky’s mysterious glass’. This could be interpreted as a reference to heaven, as the men look through the glass onto death.
Owen uses more techniques in the following stanza however, as he further illustrates the men’s surroundings. Time seems irrelevant as ‘hour after hour they ponder the warm field’. The feeling of a heavenly place is further emphasised here. Owen utilizes pathetic fallacy as he tells of the ‘far valley behind, where the buttercup had blessed with the gold their slow boots coming up, where even the little brambles would not yield.’ The in-animate plants are trying to stop the men from walking into battle. They ‘clutched and clung to them like sorrowing hands’. The brambles are trying to prevent the men from joining the slaughter. Personification is obviously evident here in addition to the sense of sorrow. Additional personification follows, ‘they breathe like the trees unstirred’. This clever writing skill subtly gives the reader a different perspective of the immediate surroundings and may change the shape of the poem in their mind.
These lines could also give a religious view as nature is blessing the men, not God. Moreover, the brambles referred to might be compared to the crown of thorns Jesus wore on his last journey as he was led to his crucifixion possibly pointing towards an image of religious sacrifice.
It is ironic how the men are on possibly their last journey, up a hill, in the same way Jesus was. Furthermore, the soldiers died in order to save others in the same way as Jesus. Both the men and Jesus sacrificed themselves in an unselfish endeavour to create a better world. Owens use of symbolism here is deeply thought provoking and perhaps the most emotive language used in the poem.
It is the pointlessness of war that Owen makes obvious later in the poem.
The British leaders believed that they would win the war no matter how many men were thrown to the guns. The senselessness of war was overridden was overshadowed by patriotic fervour. Owen lets the reader know there were ‘No alarms of bugles, no high flags, no clamorous haste’. The war was very different to how many thought it should be, and it took many by surprise when they read Owens work, including myself. This advances the sense of sadness as the men were full of hope and excitement before the conflict, and at the end all that is left is death and decay. Owen then brings life back into the poem with ‘the sun, like a friend with whom their love is done’. The sun is used again to give a feeling of mortality, as it is this star that brought life to the planet in the first place.
The onslaught is introduced within a few lines of the fourth stanza. The opening words ‘So, soon they topped the hill, and raced together…’ give the impression of a matter-of-fact tone, as if the men dying was inevitable. Owen continues ‘…over an open stretch of herb and heather…’ Here the men are seemingly enjoying the last few moments of their lives as they run as a unit towards the enemy; ‘Exposed.’
Again, Owen changes the mood almost at once and by using just a single word. As the reader, you know that the men are out in the open and the end is close for the soldiers.
‘And instantly the whole sky burned with fury against them’. This line suggests that the sky in which the sun they were admiring only moments before has turned on them. This line could also be compared to the greek legend of Icarus, Icarus made some wings out of wax and they enabled him to fly but unfortunately he flew too close to the sun and the wings melted and he died. They are under a torrent of fire from the enemy lines, and it seems to them that fire is coming at them from all sides.
The religious imagery is continued immediately after the bloodbath begins, ‘earth set sudden cups in thousands for their blood; and the green slope chasmed and steepened sheer to infinite space.’ The cups sent by the earth in thousands could be linked to the Holy Grail in which Jesus’ blood was collected. The infinite space mentioned could be another reference to heaven.
The feeling of this attack being the soldiers last is strengthened at the beginning of the sixth stanza; ‘of them running on that last high place’. Here Owen returns to the hill on which the men are spending their last moments. If we look carefully at this line, you can see the Owen has written in a biblical style. The use of ‘of’ at the start of the sentence illustrates this.
The religious imagery returns yet again later in the verse as the soldiers feel the ‘fury of hell’s upsurge’ and fall ‘past this worlds verge’. The latter could possibly imply that there is another life waiting for those soldiers who are shot. Owen follows this up with ‘Some say God caught them even before they fell’ which entails that the men will be in God’s company (heaven) as soon as they die. This is the first time Owen talks about God in a positive light.
The last stanza in ‘Spring Offensive’ is the longest of the seven. Owen finely concludes his poem within these nine lines, using an array of rhetorical devices and intricate symbolism. Owen talks about ‘Hell’ for a second time, as well as mentioning how the grand image of war can be overshadowed by slaughter, ‘Long famous glories, immemorial shames’.
Owen finishes the poem with a rhetorical question, ‘Why speak not they of comrades that went under?’ Here Owen is saying that the soldiers who survived the War do not talk about their experiences or of their friends that died in the fighting. Maybe Owen is asking himself as well as the reader this question, as he is unsure of why no one talks of the appalling events of
1914-1918.
In the second poem ‘Futility’, Owen uses the image of a man injured in a battle to portray the needlessness of war. The title of the poem summaries Owens feeling on war; that it is pointless and those who fight are powerless to stop the slaughter.
The poem begins with the sun, the life giver that Owen talks about in Spring Offensive. ‘Move him into the sun, gently its touch awoke him at once’. Here Owen is suggesting that the sun has power to give life to those who are dying, maybe inferring that the sun is more powerful than God.
At the end of the first stanza, Owen writes ‘the kind old sun will know’. This is meant to tell the reader that the sun is omnipotent, as is God. The poem compares religion and nature throughout.
Later, Owen talks about how God may be responsible for creating the sun ‘woke, once, the clays of a cold star’. Owen questions God soon after however, ‘Are limbs, so dear achieved, are sides, full-nerved, -still warm, -too hard to stir?’ and ‘was it for this the clay grew tall’. These lines have a purpose. That is, to question why God made the human race if they were to blow each other to pieces during war. Why did God evolve man to kill them?
Comparisons can be drawn between ‘Spring Offensive’ and ‘Futility’ because of the way in which Owen uses religion and nature to question the point of war and secondly, the reason for man being evolved.
While ‘Spring Offensive’ talks a lot about the men’s surroundings, ‘Futility’ focuses on key ideas instead if imagery. ‘Futility’ retains a sad mood throughout, while ‘Spring Offensive’ changes mood suddenly with the use of single lines or words. I think that ‘Spring Offensive’ is more effective at moving the reader as the feeling of deep sadness is emphasised by the change in mood. One minute the men are in high spirits as they wade through the long grass and suddenly they are ‘exposed’ to the ‘unseen bullets’ of the enemy machine guns. This also makes the soldiers appear very brave, as they show little fear.
To conclude, I would say that ‘Spring Offensive’ is an exceptional piece of writing that moved me greatly. I felt real sympathy and sadness for the men that lost their lives for their country after the officers threw them into the front line. This feeling is strengthened through ‘Futility’, which makes the pointlessness of the War even more apparent.
Owen uses rhythm and style to paint the terrible pictures of war in order to rouse the reader into thinking about his ideas. His use of rhetorical devices further reinforces his views on war and its senselessness. Finally, his questioning of God and his way of making nature appear all-powerful adds an effective twist to the overall view of his writing.
