By analyzing the poem “Disabled” outline how Owen uses the poetic form to illustrate his ideas about the war.
In the poem “Disabled” Wilfred Owen clearly expresses his opinion about First World War and the peer pressure that was used to force young people to join the army. The images created by a poet are very realistic as Owen was a soldier himself. In this poem he looks to the world through a young man’s eyes, who went to the war to become a hero, but had his life finished before it has begun.
From the very first lines we are given a clue that a person has lost his legs “He sat in a wheeled chair”, this creates a sense of sympathy and pity at the same time. The poet uses a very powerful imagery in the first three lines. He expresses the sadness of man’s life by using words “ghastly suit of grey”, which creates the dark and gloomy atmosphere, as the reader links the grey colour with void, sadness. However in the third line it is written “legless, sewn short at elbow” it is common to sew shut pant legs and sleeves if someone is missing that appendage. This indicates that person has lost his leg and forearm and now his life depends on other people. It is fascinating how the poet plays with the reader’s emotions, making him feel responsible for the unenviable situation of the man, in just three lines. At the same verse, the poet uses contrast to make the created atmosphere even stronger by describing the happy life of boys playing outside. “Voices of play and pleasures after day” is very sad phrase, as the man is not able to do anything by himself, yet is forced to listen to voices of playing children until the night time comes and kids have to go home to their families, where they are safe. But this man is in an institute, he doesn’t feel safe, he doesn’t feel like home and he never will. The words, “dark”, “shivered”, “ghastly” and “grey”, as shown in the first stanza, reveal the isolation of the soldier and help to create pitiful atmosphere. This is a sharp contrast to the second stanza, where “Town used to swing so gay” and “glow-lamps budded in the light blue trees”, a sense of euphoria and romance is in the air. It seems to suggest that the halcyon days of youth and romance are nothing more than distant memories to him, gone forever, reducing him to a cripple, devoid of joy and happiness. “And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim” and of course, as it gets darker girls become more flirtatious. In addition to the fact that he had become physically handicapped, he has been psychologically scarred as he will be shunned by women and that they will never see him again as being tall and handsome, “now he will never feel again how slim girls’ waists are, or how warm their subtle hands”. Now, he believed others looked down on him and "All of them touch him like some queer disease.” But he ones who were getting close to him were only nurses; he couldn’t feel any warmth again. Even though the second stanza starts with happiness, showing the bustle of town life, there is again that sad atmosphere being created through the description of things that the man is not able to have anymore.
