Wilfred Owen Research Paper

In your view, what is a distinctive idea explored in Wilfred Owen’s poetry? Explain how this idea is developed in at least TWO poems you have studied.

Wilfred Owen was an exceptional poet of his time. Within Owen’s poetry it is explored that war is a gruelling and endearing situation to come across as well as participate within. Owen’s portrayal of his experiences of war and the battlefield break down the propaganda of the day and result in his perspective of the futility of war. Owen is able to transport the reader into the world of his poetry by presenting horrific situations, which demand a response from the reader. This allows for Owen’s perspective on war to come through. It successfully does this through the poems ‘Mental Cases’ and ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’.
Owen’s poetry often strictly opposed to the mainstream propaganda of the day in particular the messages of ‘Mental Cases’ and ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ are focused on dismantling the pro-war propaganda.
In ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’. the title and final line allude to a patriotic poem by Ancient Roman crato ‘Horace’. “Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mari” is translated as “It is sweet and honourable to die for ones country”, demonstrating Owen’s distrust of the propaganda. The capitalisation of the world “lie” demonstrates the way the pro-war propaganda was imposing and dominating in Owen’s society. Similarly, ‘Mental Cases’ presents a sharp contrast between the realities of the battlefield and the ceremonial burials of people back
home.

Wilfred Owen is able to persuade his readers that war is futile, by depicting the horrors of the battlefield and the effects it has on its soldiers. As a solider himself, Owen is able to bring the battlefield alive. He offers more than an insight to the conditions faced by men. He offers and opinion of the wastefulness and destructiveness of lives, which goes against the propaganda of the day. The realistic image of battle conditions are presented clearly in ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’. We come to pity the men who fight as they are described through the simile of “Bent double like old beggars”. Immediately we visualise the state of the men who “trudge” home after battle. The diction “trudge” emphasises the dreary pace of the soldiers who are exhausted, “Drunk with fatigue”. The pace quickens when the gas drops in and the nightmarish death unfolds. From initially being described as “men”, the soldiers take on the description of “boys” which connotes the innocence of the soldiers, especially the one who dies. Owens use of sensory imagery invites the reader to hear, smell and feel the conditions. We hear the gassed soldiers “yelling…, guttering, choking” as he suffers a horrifically painful death. We see, like the others, as he is “flound’ring like a man in fire and lime…” the simile again allowing the association of something familiar to really visualise the event. The moment continues to unfold by the use of present participle, “stumbling… drowning..” It is as if Owen wants us to understand that this horrific incident continues to exist in the mind forever, affecting our distance from the situation. We just let it go. And even though the soldier is considered dead, we still hear his final moments “gargling from the froth corrupted lungs..” and taste like he does “bitter as cud”. It’s a very undignified death, emphasised more so by the diction “flung: sensing that there is no time for compassion. In effect, we as the reader, are highly disturbed by this, and come to agree with Owens sentiments, that war is futile. His personal and inviting tone at the end of the poem “My friends” asks you consider his stance against sending children” to war.

As a result of war and battle conditions, Owen reinforces his view of the futility of war with the poem “Mental Cases”. This time he takes us between the horrors of the battlefields and the result of war, through the description of the soldiers who are shell shocked, The soldiers suffering nightmares is similar to the persona in “Dulce et Decorum est” as he also experiences every night the recurring nightmare of what he witnessed at the front, “In all my dreams, before my helpless sight…” The shell-shocked soldiers continue to suffer form their experiences, even after their war is war, Owen graphically describes their nightmare” batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles”. The onomatopoeia allows the reader to not only see but also hear the force of the guns and what they can do to the human body. Owens use of diction with the word “carnage” sums up his views of that battlefield, but immediately we sense the complete slaughter of soldiers, so much that “… still their eyeballs shrink tormented back into their brains…”. In “Dulce est Decorum et”, men stand and watch an unmasked man asphyxiate from gas. “Dim, through misty panes and thick green light, as under a green sea, I see him drowning.” The simile shows how the gas engulfs the scene and men helplessly witness the solider chock and die. Other helpless images, which reinforce Owens view of the futility of war, are shown in “Mental Cases”. The surviving soldiers are so mentally damaged by what they have experienced that they are referred to as “purgatorial shadows” symbolically living in a dark and tormented place. Positive aspects of life such as “sunlight” and “dawn” are associated with blood, “Dawn breaks open lie a wound that bleeds afresh”. The beauty of Dawn is washed away by the simile of an open wound, something associated with battle wounds. These haunting images consume the soldiers that they so mentally damaged that they cant exist and will never return to sanity. We, as readers, are so moved and horrified by Owens poem, that we come to agree with him about the destructiveness of life and that war is not that glorious lie once told to us.