Wilfred Owen's Attitude Towards World War 1 As Shown In His Poetry

Even a century long time after his death, Wilfred Owen is still famous for his war poetry written during World War 1. In his poems, Owen uses various language techniques to vividly illustrate the horrendous reality of war. Hence, he communicates his own anti-war feelings, that are embedded beneath his techniques. However, although he is now known as an anti-war poet, for once, he had been a naive boy, who had been pressured by the propaganda and volunteered to fight in war.

The aftermath o the gas attacks is addressed in the last stanza. The reader is now apart of the poem by the use of the possessive pronoun "you too" that imposes the reader to empathise with the injured victim. The victim is then described by the gruesome alliteration and assonance of "watch the white eyes writhing in his face" that together enhance the vivid sight. The continuing imagery of "gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs" uses onomatopoeia to lead the reader to believe that war is incorrectly glorified. The last lines "My friend, you would not tell with such a high zest/ To children ardent for some desperate glory,/The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Then, "An ecstasy of fumbling / Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time / But someone still was yelling out and stumbling [. . .]. " Everyone has managed to put on his mask, except one unfortunate soldier. As the mustard gas seeps into his lungs, he begins to scream and jerk around, but it is too late for his companions to save him. "[W]atch the white eyes writing in his face / His hanging face / [. . .] at every jolt, the blood / Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs [. . .] / Of vile, incurable sores on the innocent tongue [. . .]. " Nowhere in the entire poem is there any mention of how wonderful and brave the soldiers feel at being given the chance to die for their country.

One is to think of war as one of the most honorable and noble services that a man can attend to for his country, it is seen as one of the most heroic ways to die for the best cause. The idea of this is stripped down and made a complete mockery of throughout both of Wilfred Owen’s poems “Dulce Et Decorum Est” and “Anthem for Doomed Youth”. Through his use of quickly shifting tones, horrific descriptive and emotive language and paradoxical metaphors, Owen contradicts the use of war and amount of glamour given towards the idea of it.

In the second stanza, the pace of the narrative is increased. Owen describes the flurry of activity that takes place when it dawns on the platoon that they have the hazard of gas to deal with. He begins by writing "Gas, GAS!"(9), which instantly grabs the attention of the reader, and by writing it

Wilfred Owen’s poetry effectively conveys his perspectives on human conflict through his experiences during The Great War. Poems such as ‘Futility’ and ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ portray these perceptions through the use of poetic techniques, emphasising such conflicts involving himself, other people and nature. These themes are examined in extreme detail, attempting to shape meaning in relation to Owen’s first-hand encounters whilst fighting on the battlefield.

How does Wilfred Owen use language and poetic devices to create impact on the reader?

This image is definitely not the glamorous picture of glory that, say army recruitment presents; worse, the soldiers are doing worse than civilians. As soon as the next stanza “[m]en marched asleep. Many had lost their boots” (5). They have lost their usual awareness and move mechanically; that doesn’t sound appealing! It gets worse: “[b]ut limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind” (6). So now they’re limping, apparently wounded, covered in blood, and can’t even see? It worsens further, “[d]runk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots/ Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind” (7-8). The soldiers are so exhausted it incapacitates them, and they can no longer hear the bullets being fired. This poem sounds like a distorted nightmare, except the speaker is living it, and even reliving the torment of the soldier’s death while he is unconscious. Owen’s wording expresses that the soldiers are merely men, deteriorating and inconceivably overwhelmed the opposite of positive war poetry containing glory and honor.

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.

The mental implications of war on the soldiers challenged the way they functioned day to day. In the ‘Next War’ Owen demonstrates the mental implications through personifying death and engaging the responder with sensory imagery.

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

With regards to repetition he repeats the word drowning to exemplify the gravity of the attack. Furthermore he repeats the word gas to demonstrate the instant rush and panic that the gas attack caused among the soldiers. In this poem Owen use the rhyming pattern of abab cdcd in stanza 1. In stanza 2 he uses efef gh and in the final stanza he uses gh ijij klkl mnmn. In the first stanza he describes the atmosphere prior to the gas attack. In the second he takes us moment by Moment through the gas attack and in the final stanza he illustrates the repercussion of the gas attack.

“In his poetry, Wilfred Owen depicts the horror and futility of war and the impact war has on individuals.”

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

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.