Through His Poetry Wilfred Owen Wished to Convey, to the General Public, the Pity of War. In a Detailed Examination of these Poems, With Reference to Others, Show the Different in which He achieved this

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Christopher Bell 10C

Through His Poetry Wilfred Owen Wished to Convey, to the General Public, the Pity of War.  In a Detailed Examination of these Poems, With Reference to Others, Show the Different in which He achieved this

Wilfred Owen fought in the war as an officer in the Battle of the Somme.  He entered the war in January of 1917.  However he was hospitalised for war neurosis and was sent for rehabilitation at Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh that May.  At Craiglockhart he met Siegfried Sassoon, a poet and novelist whose grim antiwar works were in harmony with Wilfred Owen’s concerns.  It was at Craiglockhart where Wilfred Owen produced the best work of his short career under the tutelage of Siegfried Sassoon.  Siegfried Sassoon had recently made a public declaration against the continuation of the war by throwing his Military Cross medal for bravery into the River Mersey in Liverpool.  Wilfred Owen’s earlier work ignored the subject of war but Siegfried Sassoon urged him to write on the war.  Wilfred Owen wrote his poems while at Craiglockhart as a cathartic experience to help him to forget his experiences in France. He also wrote his poems as an attempt to stop the war and to make people realise how horrific it was.

In a thorough examination of the poems “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, “Dulce et Decorum Est” and “Disabled” and also with some reference to other works by Owen, it can be seen that he uses different poetical features, styles and methods.  Wilfred Owen addresses his readers from different stances right up to him addressing the reader personally.  This method is very effective in evoking feelings from great anger and bitterness to terrible sadness and even sarcasm, making the reader sometimes even feel guilty.  Whichever way he chooses to portray the pity of the war the end result is always the same.  

“Dulce Et Decorum Est” is a direct attack at the people in Britain who had been taken in by the propaganda drive by telling them the truth of what life is really like at the front and in what conditions their sons, fathers, brothers etc. are in.  “Dulce Et Decorum Est” consists of four unequal stanzas, the first two in sonnet form, and the last two in a looser structure.  The first stanza sets the scene of soldiers limping back from the front.   The authorial stance is of Owen telling us of his own personal experiences.  The second stanza focuses on one man who could not get his gas mask on in time.  This is a recurring nightmare that Owen has, where he sees one man “drown” in the gas and in the third stanza he describes how the man “plunges” at Owen, “guttering, choking, drowning.”  This is an image Wilfred Owen will never forget.  The fourth and final stanza, Wilfred Owen again attacks the people at home who uphold the continuance of the war, unaware of the reality.  He wishes they could experience his own “smothering dreams” which he then goes on to describe in great detail.  At the end of this poem he appeals to people not to tell children “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.”  It is sweet and fitting to die for your country.  This particular poem shows the pity of the war in a very shocking way by great use of poetical devices, which at the end he makes the reader think about.  

“Disabled” is a poem about the life of a young soldier before he “threw away his knees” in the war and of his present, miserable life.  It is not, however, written chronologically, but instead it is a stream of consciousness of thoughts wandering between the past and present.  The authorial stance is of Owen standing outside the poem.  It is quite impersonal for the young soldier in it, but it is a personal experience for the reader because the reader empathises the young soldier.  It is very unusual in that sense.  The effect that Owen wishes to portray is that the man is looking at himself and what he has become.  He wants the reader empathise, and to realise what the war can do.  This is how the pity of the war is shown in this poem.

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“Anthem for Doomed Youth” is an elegiac sonnet.  It is not an account of Owen’s experience in the war itself, but rather a judgement on it.  The title is correct; “doomed youth” as some soldiers in the war were very young.    The title can either be thought of as ironic, or in actual respect of the youth who gave their lives.   The authorial stance is a narrative observer.  This poem shows Wilfred Owen’s anger and bitterness towards the war and the church.  It is written in an unorthodox way because thorough out the first stanza he ironically ...

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