A large reason why the poems written by Wilfred Owen were so successful was the large amount of realism he used. In his poem “Dulce et Decorum est,” for instance, he writes “Gas! Gas! Quick boys! – an ecstasy of fumbling,” This is a good example of the intense realism he uses largely because of the sibilance he uses on “Gas!” This adds realism due to the “s” noise produced putting the reader into the action, through forcing them to hear the hissing sound the gas makes as it leaks from the canister. Also, the direct speech from the commanding officer seems to address the reader, putting them into the pace of the action. The pace of the reference adds to the realism, as the reader can feel the fear and adrenaline of the men as they fight to put the mask’s on in time to save their lives. In the second part of the quote during which he writes “ecstasy of fumbling,” The “ecstasy” reference portrays the happiness of the soldiers that they have a solution of avoiding the German gas attack, helping the reader visualise the adrenaline and excitement at the time.. The “fumbling” he notes however shows that despite this happiness however, the soldiers are still desperate to get the gas masks on in time to avoid the attack, and again adds to the pace of this paragraph.
The other poems have just the same amount of realism. In “Exposure,” for example, it is written “Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires, glozed with crusted dark red jewels.” At the start of this line, the reference to the “ghosts” portrays well how the soldiers feel and look: Cold, ill, and close to death. Also, it shows their state of mind, and how they feel dead inside, as though they have no life left in them, and how they feel as though they should be dead. Then he writes of how they “drag home,” again implying the low morals and energy the group has, reluctantly dragging themselves back into the trenches, tired from how sleep deprived they are. Adding to the tense atmosphere is the reference to “crusted dark jewels.” This instantly causes the reader to think of the sight of congealing blood, once again reflecting the soldiers’ shattered states of minds. At the same time however, it makes the blood seem precious, as though to the soldiers spilt blood is precious as a jewel. This is once again a reference to the soldiers’ current psychological states. This adds to the realism further, as it allows the reader to imagine the atmosphere in the trenches.
A large success point of Wilfred’s poetry was how well he portrayed the soldiers’ states of minds. From Wilfred Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum est,” he writes “in all my dreams, before my helpless sight.” The first section of this quotation, where he writes “in all my dreams,” he may be seen to be referring to several different things. Firstly, he may be referring to how he is repeatedly forced to witness this event during his nightmares, thus his later reference to his “helpless sight,” as you cannot help what you see in your dreams, and cannot interfere. He could also be seen however, to be making a reference to how helpless he felt at the time, thus comparing it to a dream, as like a dream he could do nothing to help the suffering, dying man. Also, Wilfred Owen may be seen to be making a reference to the poor quality of the equipment on hand, as with the gas mask on, he is struggling to see the man dying through the dirty lenses.
Another trait of the psychological side of Wilfred Owen’s poetry was how he showed the fatigue of the soldiers, with references such as “drunk with fatigue” demonstrating this. Here, Owen compares how the soldiers are reacting to their tiredness to being drunk, again helping the reader to understand and picture how the soldiers are effected by this.
His other poems also thrive on their amount of psychological references. In “Exposure” for instance, Wilfred Owen uses pathetic fallacy to portray the soldier’s current states of minds, when he uses the phrase “iced east winds that knive us.” Later in the poem, he also uses the phrase “We hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire, like twitching agonies of men among it’s brambles.” A rather simple analysis of this quotation will show how he describes the gusts of wind as mad, possibly also referring to the soldiers’ states of minds in the process. It does this through conjuring up the images of the barbed wire being madly and forcefully blown around in the “mad gusts,” and then immediately follows this image with a mention of the soldiers, thus putting across to the reader the madness of the soldiers. The main feature of this line however is him getting the simple idea of wind blowing through the barbed wire, and then altering this to make a comparison between this uninteresting feature, and men painfully dying and twitching inside its brambles. In using this simile, Wilfred shows the paranoia of the soldiers, by showing how they are connecting nearly everything with death, pain and similar articles.
“The Sentry” continues this sense, during which it is written “Eyeballs, huge-bulged like squids watch my dreams still.” This adds to the feeling of paranoia, as it is putting across that his dreams, his own thoughts are being watched, one of the largest feelings of paranoia. He also writes at the end of the poem “I see your lights!” But ours had long died out.’ This multiple meaning line provides a dramatic summary of the soldiers’ current states of minds. It does this through the reference to the soldiers lights going out, thus showing that their hopes of returning alive from the war had long since ran out. Also, it once again highlights the conditions they are living in, with their lantern not having enough gas to make it through the night, therefore putting them in absolute darkness. The main idea of this line however, is to show the sentry’s true desperation to be able to see again, or at least make others believe he can. Because of this, it shows that he has either started to delude about seeing the light, and therefore not being blind, or he is lying to the others about having regained his sight. If the latter was the case, then the others would have known he was lying, due to there being no light. Irrelevant of what Wilfred Owen meant by this quotation, it has an extremely negative effect on the reader, forcing horrifying images of the intense darkness inside the dig out, and the desperate disillusions of the sentry.
One thing not as clear in his poems is Wilfred Owen’s motivation for writing them, and there are many different possibilities for this. Firstly, it is very possible that he wrote them for therapy. In his poem “The Sentry,” for instance, he writes “Eyeballs, huge-bulged like squids watch my dreams still.” This strengthens the idea that he wrote the poems for therapy, as he is revealing to the reader that even now he is still haunted my many aspects of the war. Also, as is written in all of his poems, he saw many terrifying sights, and in this quotation he writes about how his dreams are haunted by these events. Because of this, the easiest way to come to terms with what he has seen would be to write about them, thus increasing the chances that his poems were indeed written for therapy. Another possibility is that he was writing these poems to warn people that the war was not as the propaganda and other war poems were indicating, and that the war was in fact very hard. A quotation from “Dulce et Decorum est” helps to prove this at the end of the poem when Wilfred Owen writes “The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est, Pro patria mori.” This proves this point by calling the idea of dying for your country sweet and right a lie. One of the main intentions of propaganda at the time was to convince soldiers that it was right to die for their country, and this entire poem was devoted to proving this wrong, as was revealed at the end. This is very plausible as he himself got tricked into joining because of the propaganda, and it would have been natural for him to want to prevent other people from following his mistake. This would also tie in with the next possibility, which is that he was writing his poetry to discredit and undermine the other war poets, thus overcoming his betrayal, and also saving people from joining. Finally, he may have written his poems simply to come to term with what had happened, so that he could move on. This would explain why when he was in Craiglockhard, he had such a massive poetry spree, because he had so much to come to term with, in so little time.
To conclude, Wilfred Owen was a completely revolutionary and a greatly talented war poet. His main strength was the unrivalled and uncensored amount of realism he placed inside his poetry, with his disturbing and vivid quotes such as “Obscene as cancer, a bitter as the cud.” He was almost the only poet who allowed the reader to actually be fully aware of what the war was like, putting him miles ahead of nearly every other poet. Just as staggering is how perfectly he shows the psychological profile of himself and the men he fought besides. “Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent.” Because of all these qualities, Wilfred Owen carried out his incentive perfectly: To tell people about the war he was fighting in, thus preventing many making the mistake he made of joining.
