SITUATION
The poem doesn’t really tell a story, but walks through all the dreadful situations through the eyes of an innocent and shell-shocked soldier. It is told through a WWI veteran’s point of view in second person. By examining this “war” poem and Wilfred Owen’s background, it is reasonable to believe that Own is talking about his experience during war. Therefore making the speaker, he himself. Owen is talking to everyone that does not know the realistic feeling of war up in the frontlines. He painfully expresses all the horrific scenes he had to go through. Through remembering it, his description of the mood is very dreary and cold. It kills all sense of joy and secures one in pity and sorrow. With Owen explaining his experience [the poem] of war, one can definitely trust the speaker.
Tone: The speaker’s attitude toward the subject is bitter and full of grief, because he’s talking about his horrific experience up on the frontlines. The appropriate tone of voice to read this out loud is to read it in a humble, soft and respectful voice. This is not a poem that is to be seen as a positive. Phrases including, “coughing like hags,” “ecstasy of fumbling,” and words like “coughing,” “drowning,” and “choking” give a clue to the tone of this work.
STRUCTURE
Form: This poem is separated into four stanzas. Instead of explaining everything at once, it equally divides a significant part of the speaker’s experience into each stanza. This poem holds an ABABCDCD rhyme scheme and does not follow the “free form.” The poet chose this form for this poem because it makes it easy for him [the poet] to write such a vividly gruesome poem and allow it to be easily understood by the reader.
Movement: The poem begins with the explaining the how tired all the soldiers are throughout the war, then goes into the combat they face; it later finishes off with the reason why the soldiers fought. The images and ideas developed are all