Disabled and Mental Cases Comparison

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Disabled and Mental Cases Both 'Mental Cases' and 'Disabled' are anti-war poems evoking powerful and sometimes shocking emotions. Owen shows a less pleasant side to 'The Great War' in his typical fashion. 'Disabled' paints a vivid picture of a young man's misfortune and shows the contrast between his old life - full of hope - and his new life, in which he has no hope. 'Mental Cases', on the other hand, outlines the mental effects of the war, with strikingly realistic images. The title of the poem itself distinguishes its main character from a normal person. The term ‘disabled’ suggests that the character has somewhat ‘been’ disabled rather than being born disabled. This leads on to the reason which resulted in this person being disabled which is the effects of war. The poem disabled starts off with a morbid description a of a man in a wheelchair. he is described as wearing a ‘ghastly suit of grey’ which expresses connotations of a transitional phase between life and death. and earlier described to be ‘waiting for dark’ which in relation to the earlier comment can be said to have implications of waiting for death and so on. Furthermore the immediate appearance of ‘dark’, ‘grey’, and shivered’ sets up the isolation of the wounded soldier. It strikes a strong comparison to the warmth. In terms of the physical appearance of the man, he is said to be wearing ‘Legless, sewn shorts at the elbows’ . This bluntly makes apparent the fact that this man has lost his legs and parts of his arms. This effect of pity on the audiences side is further amplified by the use of alliteration. He hears the ‘Voices of play and pleasure’ but he is far removed from them. This can be interpreted as Wilfred Owen expressing his feelings of pity towards the victims and as a call for realization of the sheer reality of the situation compared to a

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