Comparing The Parable Of The Old Man And The Boy By Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen uses language and poetic devices to evoke sympathy for the soldier in the poem by using in-depth descriptions. An example of this is in the first stanza where the soldier in the poem ‘shivered in his ghastly suit of grey’. The ‘g’ sound in the words ‘ghastly’ and ‘grey’ emphasises the horror of ‘ghastly’ combined with the dreariness of ‘grey’, which are now the two main features of his life. The word ‘ghastly’ shows something that is strange and unnatural. The adjective ‘grey’, which has connotations of bleakness, portrays an image of darkness and monotony. Furthermore, the verb ‘shivered’ shows that he is vulnerable and exposed. In the phrase, ‘Legless, sewn short at elbow’, the sibilance at the end of ‘Legless’, and in ‘sewn short’ tell us that the short-syllable words are ruthlessly to the point, so it emphasises the fact that the soldier has no arms and legs because of his wounds.

Owen uses Imagery as another method to convey the brutality of war and also as a means of contrast to show his life before and after. In the third stanza he creates a picture of blood being poured away; “poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry” and he uses metaphorical language to emphasis the point that he nearly bled to death as you cannot literally pour the blood out of your veins.

The prominence of a few themes - amputation, fate and death - create the catharsis required in a tragedy, mainly incidents which “arousing] pity and fear,” (definition). The repetition of these eerie and morbid themes keep them at the forefront of a reader’s mind, and put them in an uneasy emotional state, leading to a sense of catharsis at the end of the long, marathon novel. One main motif through the novel is that of amputation, and armlessness, which come to symbolize loss, helplessness, and the way in which sometimes one’s hands are bound, at the will of something greater. For example, after Owen accidentally kills John’s mother, he borrows John’s stuffed armadillo, a prized playing toy, and returns it without its claws, rendering it “USELESS TO JohN QUOTE,” which Owen means to signify “QUOTE ABOUT IM AM GODS MESSENGER.” This theme is touched upon many more times, and becomes somewhat of an obsession for Owen, who repeatedly removes or adds arms to female figures, including John’s deceased mother’s dressmaker’s dummy, a large catholic stature of a saint, which he desecrates. In irony, or perhaps a fate Owen had foreseen, the novel concludes with Owen losing his arms, protecting a group of Vietnamese children, in his last act of heroism. In addition to the theme of amputation, the theme of fate, and predestiny from God, is woven throughout, particularly perpetuated by Owen, who sees himself as God’s instrument. Owen consistently reminds John of the certainty of fate, and is angered when John does not share his blind faith. Owen believed “there were no accidents; there was a reason for that baseball - just as there was a reason for Owen being small, and a reason for his voice. In Owen's opinion, he had INTERRUPTED AN ANGEL, he had DISTURBED AN ANGEL AT WORK, he had UPSET THE SCHEME OF THINGS (page 102).” Is it Owen’s blind

Wilfred Owen’s poetry is shaped by an intense focus on extraordinary human experiences. In at least 2 poems set for study, explore Owen’s portrayal of suffering and pity.

Explore the Use of Contrast in Wilfred Owen’s ‘Disabled’ and Kate Chopin’s ‘The Story of an Hour.’

Firstly, Owen uses some language features to appeal to my imagination such as personification to emphasise the idea of humankind in conflict with nature. In the first stanza, Owen mentions "our brains ache in the merciless iced east winds that knife us" this suggests how painful war is from the exposure to the extreme cold. Owen uses the word "merciless" to suggest

The purpose of war is again in question through the ironic titles evidenced in most of Owen’s poems. In ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’, the sweet and fitting death is contrasted against the bitter and

Owen’s inner beliefs and perspectives tell himself to believe that the sun will rejuvenate the young soldier, despite the futility of the miracle occurring. This is a great example of Owen’s perspectives on human conflict. Owen continues the second stanza with thoughts questioning the sun’s creation of life in the first place: ‘Think how it wakes the seeds, - Woke once the clays of a cold star’. The repetition of ‘W’ symbolises the confusion of Owen and leaves him questioning why the sun has the potential to create life, but is unable to resurrect the fallen. Throughout the poem of ‘Futility’, Owen contrasts his opinions on the sun. He moves from acknowledging his affection to the ‘kind old sun’ in the first stanza, to finding the sun’s beams ‘fatuous’ and meaningless in the second. These techniques Owen uses convey his perspectives on human conflict extremely well.

Owen also uses language of terror and powerlessness for the speaker as the poem progresses. Describing the soldier the speaker has seen fail to attach his gas mask, he says, “I saw him drowning” (14). He dreams of this encounter repeatedly, “[in] all my dreams, before my helpless sight/ He plunges at me” (15-16). In his dreams, he is not only powerless to aid this man, but

As an anti-war poet, Wilfred Owen uses his literary skills to express his perspective on human conflict and the wastage involved with war, the horrors of war, and its negative effects and outcomes. As a young man involved in the war himself, Owen obtained personal objectivity of the dehumanisation of young people during the war, as well as the false glorification that the world has been influenced to deliver to them. These very ideas can be seen in poems such as 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' and 'Dulce ET Decorum EST Pro Patria Mori'. Owen uses a variety of literary techniques to convey his ideas.

Owen presents the horrific subject matter through ‘Strange meeting’, ‘The Next War’ and ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’. The shift in Owens tone explores his bitterness and shows that he begins to accept the looming fact of his own impending death.

<br>Owen uses simile to explain better the situation faced by the men. Simile is often used by poets and is used mainly for description in Dulce Et Decorum Est. The poet provides us with these similes as he has simplified them to a state in which we would understand them. An example of this would be: "flound'ring like a man in fire or lime…" this example makes us aware of the movement which this soldier would use during the gas attack "flound'ring". Another implication this simile has is that the soldier would not be in control of the situation as if a man was on fire he would not be able to put it out simply and this would be similar with the soldier used in the example as this would be an unusually helpless situation for him to be in. Owen does not use simile as much as the previous kinds of imagery.

In the First World War people wanted the young men to go to war, but

War is not heroic. War is sickness, struggle, and death. This is the message that poet and World War I soldier Wilfred Owen wanted to instill in his people back home. Those back home talked of glory and national pride and rooted for their soldiers, however, they were unaware of the horrors these soldiers witnessed and experienced. The soldiers and their people back home were not only separated by distance but by mental barriers, which Owen showcases in his poetry. Owen’s use of personification in “Anthem for Doomed Youth” degrades the soldiers to objects to show how the war dehumanized them to intentionally create a disconnect between the audience and the soldiers.

Owen’s poem has the clear intention of showing the true nature of war to the reader, which is mainly achieved by contrasting reality against the ways in which war is so