How Does Wilfred Owen's Use Of Ethos In Disabled

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With Reference to “Out, Out” and “Disabled”, how do Frost and Owen create a sense of pathos?
Wilfred Owen’s poem ‘Disabled’ concerns a young soldier who returns from the Great War suffering terrible injuries. The title of the poem is significant in creating a sense of pathos as it makes clear that the theme of loss will be explored throughout. Robert Frost’s poem ‘Out, Out’ is about a young boy sawing wood in the Vermont mountains who accidentally cuts his hand off with the saw and dies. The title is an allusion to the Shakespearean tragedy where, on hearing of his wife’s death, Macbeth says “out, out brief candle”. The reader can deduce from the title that the poem will concern the brevity and fragility of life. Owen and Frost use pathos …show more content…

The buzz saw is personified using animalistic imagery creating a deep sense of fear and a real awareness of the immense power which the saw yields. “Buzz saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled.” The reader feels pity for the boy as the repeated use of the verb “snarled” creates the image that the saw has a life of its own and the boy is not at fault when he loses his hand. Therefore, the use of personification emphasises innocence. Similarly, Owen uses personification in the poem ‘Disabled’ to convey the horrific injures the solider endured. In personifying blood as “Leap of purple spurted” and the use of a dynamic verb, a vivid image of a creature leaping from his war wound is created causing a sorrowful emotional response from the reader. Sleep is also cleverly personified as a mother gathering up her children using the metaphor of “till gathering sleep had mothered” the boys’ voices. This underlines a sense of pain and of physical isolation which helps the reader feel pity for the soldier who is cold and tired and yet unable to move until someone remembers that he needs putting to …show more content…

The damaged soldier at the centre of ‘Disabled’ is a powerful symbol of the destruction and aftermath of war. Prior to enlisting, he “liked a blood smear down his leg” and “after football… drunk a peg” implying his naivety and that he was unaware of the true realities of war. The football game and the blood smear symbolise the way in which men saw war as a game to be won with honour and glory, but which ended in bloodshed and slaughter. The buzz saw in "Out, Out" symbolises the mindless power of machinery which can destroy human life, when out of man’s control. It symbolises the fragility of life and the danger of child labour. By using these symbols, both poets create a feeling of compassion for the personas, both of whom experience accidental

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