Wilfred Owen Poetry
Wilfred Owen Poetry
In his poetry, Owen explores his major theme the ‘pity of war’. He was mainly concerned with establishing the truth about war: that it was not at all glorious. He achieves this purpose through highlighting the emphatically negative aspects of war, including the loss of young life, injustice, lies, and the effect of war on soldiers and the horrors of war. Two poems that convey these areas clearly and highlight Owen’s ‘pity of war’ are ‘The Next War’ and ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’.
In ‘The Next War’ Owen effectively conveys the horrors of war and injustice of the leaders sending men to death while they are safe. He uses personification to convey the soldiers relationship with Death in the lines “Out there, we’ve walked quite friendly up to Death” and “We laughed at him”. This shows that the soldiers had learned to live with Death to get through the day alive and sane. They had to become friends with him otherwise they would go insane worrying constantly about who would die next and whether it would be them or not. When the soldiers had a close call with death they laughed, it was the only thing they could do, and this again suggests their sanity is waning. This shows the readers the horror of war as the soldiers had to go to such extreme measures just to make it through the day, which is one of the main aspects of the pity of war.
The use of the metaphor in the lines “We’ve sniffed the green thick odour of his breath” conveys that ‘his breath’ is being directly compared to the gas used in the war. It implies that the gas is sent directly from Death to seek out and do harm, it also suggests that it is an often occurrence as someone breathing is on a regular basis. “He’s spat at with bullets and he’s coughed shrapnel.” This personification conveys that the bullets and shrapnel from the enemy, which bring death to soldiers, are also sent from Death to kill. This makes Death seem like the enemy and that they should be fighting against Death not
In his poetry, Owen explores his major theme the ‘pity of war’. He was mainly concerned with establishing the truth about war: that it was not at all glorious. He achieves this purpose through highlighting the emphatically negative aspects of war, including the loss of young life, injustice, lies, and the effect of war on soldiers and the horrors of war. Two poems that convey these areas clearly and highlight Owen’s ‘pity of war’ are ‘The Next War’ and ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’.
In ‘The Next War’ Owen effectively conveys the horrors of war and injustice of the leaders sending men to death while they are safe. He uses personification to convey the soldiers relationship with Death in the lines “Out there, we’ve walked quite friendly up to Death” and “We laughed at him”. This shows that the soldiers had learned to live with Death to get through the day alive and sane. They had to become friends with him otherwise they would go insane worrying constantly about who would die next and whether it would be them or not. When the soldiers had a close call with death they laughed, it was the only thing they could do, and this again suggests their sanity is waning. This shows the readers the horror of war as the soldiers had to go to such extreme measures just to make it through the day, which is one of the main aspects of the pity of war.
The use of the metaphor in the lines “We’ve sniffed the green thick odour of his breath” conveys that ‘his breath’ is being directly compared to the gas used in the war. It implies that the gas is sent directly from Death to seek out and do harm, it also suggests that it is an often occurrence as someone breathing is on a regular basis. “He’s spat at with bullets and he’s coughed shrapnel.” This personification conveys that the bullets and shrapnel from the enemy, which bring death to soldiers, are also sent from Death to kill. This makes Death seem like the enemy and that they should be fighting against Death not