What have we learnt about war from reading Wilfred Owen's Disabled and the pre 20-century Scottish poetry?

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The Poetry Of War. What have we learnt about war from reading Wilfred Owen’s Disabled and the pre 20-century Scottish poetry?

Introduction

We have read disabled by Wilfred Owen and two Scottish laments. These have shown us many things and ways in which war affects people. The way in which the writers express their writing also created a good atmosphere in which the theatre of war seemed right. Both of these poems show to us how war has been fought across time and how people cope with the tragedy of war. Although the poems are hundreds of years apart, they bear attributes that are mutual between them. I will now show what I have found out about war from these poems and how they are different but also similar.

Disabled by Wilfred Owen is a poem about the terrible aftershocks of war. The young man in the poem has been severely crippled by the effects of war and can no longer walk or do anything for himself without aid. I think this boy joined up for all the wrong reasons, like wanting to impress his girlfriend and look good in his new uniform. It says in the poem “and soon he was drafted out with drums and cheers” he was treated like a hero when he went out to war, but when he came back he was only thanked by one “solemn” man who “inquired about his soul”. We can see that his reception from going out and coming back to and from war is so very different and the cheers and patriotism that sent him out were not there as he was greeted back home. We know that the young man had before the war so much on for him and to look forward to. He “used to swing so gay ... and girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim” From reading this we can see that the young man had many young girls after him and he had a good nightlife in and around the town. After he returns from war however, to girls touch him “like a queer disease” and this is a huge contrast to the time when girls glanced at him and fancied him. We can see that the girls who look after him feel uncomfortable with touching him, as he is limbless and apparently diseased, so they see it as unhealthy to do so. This is a terrible aftershock of the war, because as well as being physically unable to move the young man, cut off in his prime has to deal with the mental strain of being treated unnaturally.

The first thing that the young man hears is boys playing football in the park opposite and screaming playfully as they do so. This is described as “voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn, voices of play and pleasure after day” and we know that this is difficult for him because it sharply reminds him of his inability to walk or move without help, due to being limbless. I think the imagery of that line is excellent descriptively as it portrays to us how the voices are so innocent and playful, but yet deeply painful for this man as he knows they are experiencing something he will never do so again. The imagery of the voices being a hymn is good also as we can associate this with funerals, the voices singing playfully but, to this man sounding hellish as they are painful to him. To anyone else they would be uplifting, but as people in funerals know, the voices are sad and painful.

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The second verse creates a brilliant atmosphere of how life was for this young man in his prime. This line describes the picture brilliantly” when glow lamps budded in the light so dim and girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim, in the old times” This creates a positive atmosphere, which sets up the verse for the next line, “before he threw his knees away, now he will never feel again how slim girls waists are, or how warm their subtle hands. This line is such a come down from the atmosphere of the last, it gives a more ...

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