Wilfred Owen Comparison

587 Words3 Pages
"Owen's war poem do not always deal with the horrors of the battlefield but with life before and after the fighting." With close reference to at least two of poems explore this aspect of his poetry. Wilfred Owen's poems Disabled and Wild With All Regrets both deal with the aspect of life before and after the fighting. These aspects are presented differently with different themes, where Disabled highlights the physical impacts of war and what one misses out on such as due to them such as sex and love. Wild With All Regrets showcases the friendship and camaraderie between soldiers though the poem is about a soldier on his deathbed saying goodbye to a friend. A common theme between the poems besides "war" is that of "regret" and the constant questioning of what the holds or could have held. Both poems were written in 1917, during Wilfred Owen's time at Craiglockhart after he was admitted with "war neurosis". Disabled is a poem that tells of the impact of the glorification of war. The poem is about the life of a young man who went to war with the idea that that it was a brave and noble act and upon returning home he would be showered with thanks and parades on his bravery. However, the soldier comes back with both his legs amputated and his arm. The third person narrative of the poem makes the poem impersonal but to an extent that Owen's audience can sympathize and maybe even some can relate to the disabled soldier. The story of the soldier's life is put down in chronological order in which the poem starts with how happy he was when "Town used to swing so gay.." (Line 7) to when "There was an artist silly for his face, For it was younger than his youth, last year..." (Lines 14-15). The soldier's reminiscence of the past makes the reader pity the soldier as he was a youthful and lively young man who was innocent in the sense that he was living a vibrant life,
Open Document