Wilfred Owen Poetry Essay Example

Wilfred Owen expresses his not so pleasant experiences of war through his poetry. He shows us the portrayal of the suffering and pity that the leaders had put their young soldiers in to by sending them off to war. His poem “the parable of the old man and the young’ is a biblical illusion of the story of Abraham and the poem ‘disabled’ illustrates to us both the mental and physical consequences of going to war.
Owen adapts a biblical story to better suit a story which demonstrates to us the pointlessness and pity of war. It shows us the waste and futility of war as the leaders sacrifice their own youth for their pride. In this poem it’s suggested that Own is saying that blind faith in anything is bad. In the proper Biblical story, Abraham goes to sacrifice his son, but is stopped by an angel of god. However in Wilfred Owen’s version, it’s portrayed that their fathers/leaders were sacrificing their own young men to keep their pride.
Owen’s use of the biblical story of Abraham helps better develop the images of sacrifice throughout the poem, and these sacrifices of the young men were a distinctive attribute in the war at the time, especially to Own who had to witness the horrific sights.
“Isaac the first born spoke and said, my farther behold the preparations, fire and iron”, this shows us the innocence, trusting and accepting nature of the son/youth as they thought they were helping sacrifice something else, not themselves. We become aware that the son/youth had no knowledge of them being about be to sacrificed through the line “but where the lamb for this burnt offering”, this showed us that the youth were unaware of what was about to happen. “Then Abraham bound the youth with belts and straps”, this line shows us that the farther/leaders tied the son/forced the youth into being their victims. In Owen’s version of the story, the old man ignored the angel, just as the leaders of the nation ignored their rightful conscience. “Lay not thy hand upon the lad”,