Wilfred Owen: The Most Misunderstood Concept Of War

For years, war and the honour of war has been built up and glorified 'unfairly by the media in cartoons, movies, games, news and even songs as well as warmongers trying to cash in on unsuspecting and gullible young men who want to be recognized as heroes.

Wilfred Owen can be considered as one of the finest war poets of all times. His war poems, a collection of works composed between January 1917, when he was first sent to the Western Front, and November 1918, when he was killed in action, use a variety of poetic techniques to allow the reader to empathise with his world, situation, emotions and thoughts. The sonnet form, para-rhymes, ironic titles, voice, and various imagery used by Owen grasp the prominent central idea of the complete futility of war as well as explore underlying themes such as the massive waste of young lives, the horrors of war, the hopelessness of war and the loss of religion. These can be seen in the three poems, ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ and

Wilfred Owen was a British poet and soldier during the First World War and was born in 1893. Unfortunately Owen died just before the war ended on the 4th of November 1918 at the young age of 25. He was killed in action at the Battle of the Sambre just one week before the war had ended. A telegram from the War Office announcing his death was delivered to his mother's home as her town's church bells were ringing in celebration of the end of the war. He wrote the poem dulce et decorum est in 1917.

What is Wilfred Owen’s attitude towards Worlds War 1 and how is this shown through his poetry?

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.

War is a reality many people must face every day. War can bring out the best in people, and unfortunately the worst. This pit of war can render people inescapable and powerless. This pit of war affects the decisions people make, and this horrid pit torture and blind the mind to see life in the true colors of black and white.

Wilfred Owen, a World War One poet, revealed the unsettling subject matter of war by using his own personal perspective to explore the harsh brutal reality of war.

army when he was 22 years old. He was injured in a shell explosion in

“Gently its touch woke him once” the sun is personified as a human and gently touches the man, waking him from sleep however the warmth and the “kindness” of the sun is incompetent to fully wake the deceased, hence, the act of reviving their comrade is futile because of war’s inevitable destructiveness. The speaker starts to question, “At home, whispering of fields half-sown. Always it woke him, even in France”. A nostalgic reference to ‘Home’ with connotations of safety and peace, the sun at home always woke him up but this time was different. Owen depicts the unfortunate young soldier as “fields half-sown” implying that he is too young to die. Owen exhibit the savagery of war depriving the lives of million young ones, leaving them futile and damaged.

anything to help the dying man. This is not how it is made out to be,

We all have our own views regarding the meaning of war, but there is one that nobody can deny, although honourable, war is purely nothing but futile suffering and an everlasting road of pain. Yet from all these past struggles, we may ask ourselves why is war still present in our society today?

A war can be defined as the greatest catastrophe that can befall human beings. Intermittently, the war is justified, peace-agreements are no longer negotiable when the peace, security, and the freedom of its country are threatened. Through the four literature texts, the readers develop a deeper understanding of the fundamental concepts of war and learn to empathize with the veterans tragic yet perpetuating experiences at war.

An idea that is getting explored is that these men who are dying were not always soldiers they were once farmers and many other things this is shown in the line ‘At home, whispering of fields half-sown.’ These men who are dying are only here because there king ordered them while the trained soldiers who were in the army prior to ww1 were often in command tents far from the front lines. It also shows the ideas of suffering with the mention of limbs not working and bodies still war but unmoved. This is what the poem is focused on him and a group of soldiers in ww1 standing over the body of their dead friend contemplating about his death and the loss of potential.

Trudging through ravaged landscapes with rooted out trees, blood and mud everywhere, trenches infested with rats, half filled with water and with corpses – these were the circumstances in which some 8,700,000 lives had been lost during the First World War. However, this reality was long kept from the knowledge of the civilians at home, who continued to write about the noble pursuit of heroic ideals in old patriotic slogans (Anthology 2012: 2017). Those poets who were involved on the front soon realized the full horror of war, which is reflected in their poetic techniques, diction, and imaginations. Campbell (1999: 204) refers to their poetry as trench lyric, which not only calls attention to the poems’ most common

World War One (1914-1918) was a war involving many countries, Wilfred Owen was one of the soldiers fighting for the UK however he was completely unaware of the outcome the war would lead too. Owen strongly disagreed with the harsh reality of the war leading to him writing anti-war poetry. Likewise the anti-Vietnam war poetry was strongly anti-war, resulting in the poetry being highly critical of the war. Both wars were extremely criticized and lead to outrage by many as the majority saw little to no point of either wars. From this poetry it has allowed the public to see the real harshness behind the glamourized version advertised by the government. The poetry not only acts as a clear insight into the war but it also gave the public something to really agree with causing them to be read or listened to again and again. It is due to the great writing style of Wilfred Owen and his use of poetic devices such as metaphors and personification that gives it an even deeper meaning.