Wilfred Owen's Poem Strange Meeting

Strange Meeting

‘Strange Meeting’ by Wilfred Owen is a poem about a soldier in war who makes contact with the spirit of a dead soldier. The poem begins with the relief of a soldier as he escapes the war; but then realizes where he was when he sees the dead soldier. The spirit tells him that joining war is simply a waste of your life. The poem describes the cruelty and harshness of war, and what it’s like to be in it. Owen’s main aim was to open up the truth about war and the horrific and gruesome reality of being a soldier, contradicting the propaganda illustrating soldiers as heroic, honorable, and proud.

Owen’s poem ‘Strange Meeting’ shows the horrors of war through dramatic and memorable imagery that allow us to feel deep pity for the young soldiers, whether it’s physical or the soldier’s inner mental pain. For example, “They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress” (line 29) is a metaphor describing the violent attacks during the war. Meanwhile, “With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained” (line 11) gives a clear picture of what the dead soldier’s face was like, bringing pity to the reader. These images are used to show the immense harm and the brutality of war and its effect on men. The dead soldier describes the blood that clogged their “chariot-wheels” (line 35) showing his regret for participating in the war now that he was aware of its ugliness. Thus, when the soldier states that “the foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were” (line 42), he truly expresses the cruelty of war and how it leaves men with scarred souls. All of these images highlight the pure pain of war.

Owen’s use of assonance, alliteration and onomatopoeia in the poem help to bring it to life and remind us of the horrific situation at ...

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...fred Owen to effectively build sympathy for the second soldier as he describes the pain that men suffered in war. It is only after having described the second soldier that we find out his real identity— the enemy the soldier killed back in war, which can be proved with the second soldier’s ironic question, “I am the enemy you killed, my friend?” (line 43).

To conclude, Wilfred Owen wrote the truth. That was his goal. He did not try to dramatize his poetry. The simplicity of it is what draws readers and what they feel they can relate to. In “Strange Meeting”, Owen proved to his readers that his intent was the simple truth; and in my opinion, this is what he accomplished — to share the atrocity of war through the eyes of two soldiers. This poem really spoke to me, his clever words played like a movie in my and the truth behind the lines of the poem really shocked me.