The different types of atmosphere Owen tries to evoke are not those far off of a funeral. Owen creates the atmosphere of loneliness and dullness. He achieves this by “And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey” grey suggests dullness as grey is known as a dull colour, lifeless. From ‘Disabled’ the atmospheres I also seem to notice are death and hopelessness. It is as if Owen is dead. Even though Owen is not dead it seems as if he is because he is disabled and the fact that he is rendered helpless because of his disability to walk. Also I would suggest in ‘Anthem for doomed youth’ that it is also very lifeless and dull, it brings the reality of war with the guns, church ceremonies and choirs singing, “only the stuttering rifles rapid rattle can patter out their hasty orisons”. They have become so used to the guns that nothing else will get through to them except the war noises. “No mockeries for them from prayers or bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs”, this points out, is this all worth it as there is no one to listen or o mourn for him, so he has gone to war in vain. Nothing good has come of it, it is as if the church bells are mocking him, it is the atmosphere far more worse, compared to a funeral.
Owen evokes these atmospheres and perspectives and to an effect that the atmosphere should be feared and hated to such an extent that no one will want to experience it, so no one will go to war. The perspectives are all one sided as he describes the atmosphere so dull and lifeless that he might be dead.
The similarities between the images given by Owen fit together mainly because of one similarity of dullness. The picture given in ‘Disabled’ tells me that he was not happy during the war and still is not happy; I notice a look of regret on his face. Pictures like these mostly remind people of the war and people who died in it. I think people immediately think about the war and who had won it, maybe some think of the people who died and the person in that actual photo. But no one really understand what it was really like unless you are a survivor and you were their. There is no picture for ‘Anthem for doomed youth’ but he does make you one in your head from what he says in the poem. He creates a picture of regret here too, as he reminisces about when he was thinking about the army and how he joined to regret everything. He also creates a picture of the guns firing, and you would be so use to the guns that it would be the only thing that could destroy the sound of hasty orisons.
Some of the words that Owen uses are very descriptive and they appeal to other senses in the poem. Some words would be; “Monstrous” from ‘Anthem for doomed youth’ this would mean that the guns were probably almost unstoppable. It is as if the gun is a monster and it would take a lot of men just to take out that one gun. Also from ‘Anthem for doomed youth’, “glimmers of good-byes” this would suggest that they will still have the people saying good-bye in their eyes while in battle, and they will look back at how happy they were before all of this happened. They would probably be thinking about this to the extent that they would freeze and say to them “what am I doing? Why did I come here? what was I thinking?”. From ‘Disabled’ words like “ghastly” I would associate with a ghost, now Owen in this poem is not dead yet but surly he must be suggesting that it is so bad it is almost as if he is dead. Another word from ‘Disabled’ would be “Pay arrears” this would mean pay back. At this time Owen must have been so angry at himself and at everything that lead to him going into this war. He wants to get his pay back on everyone because he is so mad that after all the war his been through that when he is coming home no one is saying any thing except a stranger who does not even know him. If I was him and I went to war and came back disabled and did not have a lot of people their to appreciate what I have done, I would want pay back too.
The emotions created by Owen to the reader are very sad and sympathy for Owen. This would be because that we recognise now that he was almost tricked into going into the war and when he came out of it disabled he must of felt so bad and angry. The emotions Owen evokes on the characters are very interesting as everyone is acting as if it is a day to day thing. The fact that when you go to war you would be happy and then once in the war you would be sad. These are the type of emotions put onto the characters in Wilfred Owens poems.
The attitudes towards the war are very interesting because in ‘Anthem for doomed youth’ they are very much the same as ‘Disabled’ this would be because the attitudes towards the war are anger, and regret. The strongest attitude of the two is regret. Owen describes his anger about going to war in vain, which then links up to regret and wondering why he actually went to war in the first place, I don’t know why Owen went but it might have been peer pressure. Was it society that gave his legs away?
The themes explored by Owen are lifelessness, death and hopelessness. These themes are explored by; the whole of disabled, as it all describes as if Wilfred Owen is dead when he is not dead. He describes with words like “ghastly”.
In ‘Anthem for doomed youth” even in the title the word ‘doomed’ suggests sadness, compassion and that suffering is almost inescapable. Once the young people have made up their mind and they want to go to war, their mind can never be changed back; therefore they are ‘doomed’. They are no longer a person and have a choice in what happens to them; instead they are forced to fight and are no-longer self humans. This is shown by “Cattle”; this would show that they are no-longer referred to as human beings but animals that have been rounded up. They have been dehumanised, and we feel pity for them.
In disabled sadness is exposed to use by “Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn”, the boys are enjoying themselves, but the noises of joy reminds him of reality so it is a sad sound. Also in disabled they show him reminiscing about his life before all of this, this is shown by “before he threw away his knees”; he is remembering when he had knees, and how cheaply he gave them away in vain. There are some things that just remind him of what happened in the war, and no-matter how innocent or good it is, it reminds him of the war, this is shown by “there was an artist silly for his face” an artist wanted to paint him. This would probably be put under a heading of ‘injured war heroes’, this reminds him of the war and the accident.
In ‘disabled he remembers later in the poem that he might have joined the army for someone called meg, this is suggested by “to please meg”, I would then think that he joined the army because of peer pressure. I would think this because in the days of the war, many a people were joining the army, and if you did not you were possibly considered a coward, and not a woman would like you or understand why you would not want to go to war, therefore war was glamorised and he went to war.
Near the end of ‘disabled’ is the send off. “Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer goal. Only a solemn man who brought him fruits thanked him; and then enquired about his soul.” Now this would suggest some sarcasm in the thanked. At this point I would think that Wilfred Owen is very angry at people and he wants to change everything back to the way it was. Wilfred Owen uses a lot of sarcasm to attack the army and what it stands for and why they need to go to war.
