Wilfred Owen's Poetry

Born in 1893, Wilfred Owen is one of Britain’s most famous poets for giving us insight into the gruesome reality of World War 1. Owen joins World War 1 on October 21st, 1915 and soon finds himself as a 2nd lieutenant on the front line leading to his death at the age of 25. While being admitted to CraigLockhart War Hospital due to shell-shock, he realizes his only way of coping with his emotions from the war is to express them through poetry. In Wilfred’s poems, he writes about his personal experiences as well as others and the effect war has on its survivors mentally and physically show. In the poems “Mental Cases”, “Disabled” and “Insensibility” Wilfred Owen shows the physical, psychological and brutal memories war has on its victims.

The soldier cannot seem to run away from what he has been through. Wilfred Owens shows the haunted memories of the soldier by stating “Memory fingers in their hair of murders” (11), and he also expresses “Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh” (Owen 22). Owens use of personification and simile show how grueling the memories are for the soldiers. The personification between fingers memories and hair of murders indicated that their memories are the fingers that are always resurfacing the murders they committed or witnessed. And the murders is the hair, something that is attached to them and cannot get rid of. The simile dawn and wound suggest that Dawn is behaving as an open wound, it’s breaking the cycle of healing. Even though wounds are physical, the wounds the soldiers are experiencing are mental and never healing. Dawn is the start of a new day and having to endure another day means revisiting the pain again. This poem is based on Owen being a ‘Mental Case’ at Craiglockhart. In writing this poem, Owen adds in his experiences of mental break down. . My essay example gives its analysis of the poem by stating “The poem displays a side of the war worse than losing your life; losing your mind due to shellshock. Wilfred Owen describes how they are now doomed to relive the terrible acts that they have

He knows he has to accept the harsh reality of never walking or loving the same again. Wilfred Owen shows the physical damage by pointing out “He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark” (1-2) He also states, “Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands, All of them touch him like some queer disease” (Owen 11-12). Wilfred Owen uses visual imagery and simile to show the soldiers physical and psychological loss of his limbs and love. This visual of him sitting in the wheelchair and awaiting the darkness shows us that once war damages you, death is the only thing left. Owen uses the simile “girls touch” compared to a “disease” to suggest that the mention of females only contributes to his suffering. They’re attitudes now change him, and they now make no effort to hide their revulsion in touching him. The word disease is being mentioned as if they are afraid that they might catch something. Owen himself was admitted for shell shock, even though he wasn’t physically injured, he realized what he has witnessed will leave him internally is damaged. Dianne Health from Novelty sense gives her insight on this poem by saying “Owen’s "Disabled" gives the readers an intimate poem detailing the tragic loss of humanity that a soldier suffers. In "Disabled" the character's thoughts and actions reflect his desire to be free but instead he is trapped, disabled,