Wilfred_Owen

An extraordinary human experience is one that is very rarely or unusually undertaken; one that reaches beyond what is ordinarily felt and encountered, an experience that forgoes standard emotions and events. Wilfred Owen’s, a poet from World War 1, poetry explores this concept and conveys how an intense focus on these experiences helps to shape meaning. Each poem in his collection directly relates to the experiences of both he and his fellow soldiers during and due to the war and emphasis the suffering, pain and distress as well as the pity, sympathy and the sorrow encountered by each of them in the hardships and misfortune of war. Each of Owens poems is an expression of outrage at the horrors of war and of pity for the young soldiers that were sacrificed in it. The poems illustrate these emotions and unpick the experiences each of them went through. By exploring ‘Anthem for the Doomed Youth’ a questioning and aggressive manner towards the battlefield is shown and the feelings of families back home are uncovered, were as the poem ‘Disabled’ exposes the unseen mental torment of war on the individual in a bitter and naked tone. Criticises war. The use of the word Anthem implies a pride or celebration, an ‘anthem’ is a song of praise and is somewhat jolly, and is ironically used as the soldiers extraordinary experiences identify the war as anything but. The tone is first bitter and ironic filled with negativity. This is shown by the aggressive rhetorical question “what passing-bells for these who die as cattle'” The use of the word “cattle” is a metaphor and illustrates how faceless war is, each solider is just another solider, nameless and blank, like when cattle is herded in and slaughtered, no one cow or sheep means more to the farmer than the last, this helps to develop meaning and emphasises the brutality and inhumanity of war. “passing bells” an old English custom dating back centuries ago was to ring a bell every time there was a death and all who heard it where to stop and pray helping the soul to pass over, in the war a trumpet was used until there eventually was to many deaths and they cut it down to once a day . “no one is mocking” but the soldiers don’t hear the mourning either The stanza questions the honourability of war, who is there to mourn the loss of this faceless solider', the soldiers went off to war thinking it would be a heroic journey, a heroic fete, yet the soldiers die insignificantly, helplessly and alone with “only the monstrous anger of the guns” “only the stuttering rifles rapid rattle” being heard on their journey to their death and suffering. The use of personification, alliteration, assonance, and onomatepia acts as savage commentary, the repetition of the word “only” suggest that it’s not enough and that the soldiers go on suffering. “No mockeries for them” implies there was no relief, no time out from the battlefield and hardship, there was no letup in the battle despite there prayers. “Nor any voice of mourning can save the choirs” implies that they cannot be saved from their suffering, their unavoidable doom. “Choir of wailing shells” is ironic as the killers, the shells, are also personified mourners, the wail (sounding like a outcry) of the machinery and bombs (shells) are what the soldiers hear before there death and is what haunts them if they escape it. The stanza then takes a turn in emotion, and is filled with intense sadness, pity and an endless feeling of emptiness. Owen uses techniques such as imagery and a much softer, compassionate toned rhetorical question “what candles may be held to speed them all'” to hyperbole the suffering back home. The candle, held by an altar boy, represents a ritualistic element to a funeral and represents the life of each soldier, a flame going out. “not in the hands of boys” the word “boys” highlights just how young these soldiers where, also this line utilises not a literal candle held by men and women, but one “in their eyes” symbolising the tears they cry. “the pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall” a pall being a traditional funeral item (a cloth that covers the coffin) symbolically acts as a cloth of respect, this line is saying that the only way these soldiers will be covered in respect is by the pallor(sadness, pity)that covers the faces of the females back home. “And each slow dusk” represents the night-day day-night cycle relating to the life-death cycle. The line “drawing-down of the blinds” is a metaphor for a regular household duty but in this context Owen conveys his message by giving an insight to behind-the-scenes suffering of the loved ones after the burial of a soldier.