‘The loss from war is always a disturbing presence in Owen’s Poems’. Discuss.

Wilfred Owen’s anthology of work, The War Poems, emphasises the ruthless and callous nature of war and the dangers and sacrifices that the soldiers faced. The loss of war is continually portrayed throughout Owen’s anthology of poems and is depicted as a disturbing presence in various ways to expose the tragedies and futility of war. Owen portrays this through devastating physical injuries and the loss of lives, the deterioration of emotional and mental health of survivors and the distressing loss of youth and innocence.

Owen portrays the disturbing presence of loss from war through the soldiers’ devastating injuries, deteriorating physical health and the death of thousands of brave souls. Owen intends to shock his readers as he stresses the futile nature of war by revealing gruesome imagery of fatalities and the prolonged suffering of death. Owen’s poem ‘Disabled’ depicts a narrative of a soldier who is suffering the effects of war as he is “legless, sewn short at elbow”. He views himself as less than a human and lacks confidence as he has lost most of his limbs and is no longer admired or acknowledged by “giddy jilts” whose eyes “[pass] from him to the strong men that where whole”. The physical loss endured by this soldier is a disturbing presence that will forever be with him and will impact the rest of his life to the point where he is “waiting for dark” and able to hide away from the world as he is ashamed of the way he looks. Similarly, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ is also told in a narrative manner and represents Owen’s experiences in the war of how he witnessed a fellow soldier and friend die from a surprise gas attack. The first stanza illustrates the physical sufferings of soldiers in war such as being “bent double”, “knock-kneed” and weakened as “old beggars” and “hags”. Owen intends to make the reader empathise with these soldiers and evoke an emotional and distressing response by using inclusive language with the word “we”. He also aims for his readers to not only see death but also hear death through the use of onomatopoeia and graphic imagery. As the soldier is gasping for life, Owen describes him “guttering”, “choking” and “drowning” from the gas, embodying the truth of the suffering endured by soldiers experiencing these physical traumas. Through the explicit portrayal of horrific injuries and the overwhelming number of gruesome deaths, Owen emphasises the extremity of loss and thus the appalling futility of war.

The loss of psychological and emotional stability of soldiers in war is explored through many of Owen’s poems and is portrayed as an ever-present alarming presence as he enforces the reality of war. Owen portrays this loss through many of the psychological traumas experienced by the soldiers causing them to lose faith and hope in life. In Owen’s poem “Insensibility”, the lack of awareness, emotions and control over the five senses are depicted as he describes the manner in which the soldiers “cease feeling” to help ease the “tease and doubt of shelling” and the brutality of war. They have become so devoid of emotion that they “can laugh among the dying, unconcerned”. However, Owen firmly opposes this ideology as he scolds those soldiers that have chosen to become barren and emotionless. He leads the reader to believe that it is the soldiers’ fault, that they are “cursed” and subsequently have lost all humanity within them. The disturbing “eternal reciprocity of tears” will forever haunt them as they will not be able to retrieve their morality. Owen goes on to further explore the theme of loss in ‘Mental Cases’ as a witness depicts the various psychological problems that have arisen in these soldiers. They are pictured as “hellish creatures” with “drooping tongues from jaws”, “baring teeth that leer like skulls’ teeth wicked” and have “fretted sockets”. This disturbing imagery not only affects the soldiers but also those who witness the horrors that war has created. Owen further emphasises this inescapability of war through the use of his motifs of time and nature as he exclaims, “Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows” illustrating the imagery of an inevitable and unavoidable “hellish” land in which they live. However, Owen also portrays the extreme cases where a solider can feel the depths of despair and resolves to suicide to terminate the emotional and psychological trauma that they have faced. The poem, ‘S.I.W.’ portrays the narrative of a soldier who commits suicide as his conflicting emotions between his father’s belief and his own mental capability destroy his sense of reason and sense of faith. He loses his battle when his “reasoned crisis of his soul” succumbs to the “days of inescapable thrall”. The loss of mental and emotional stability is also a disturbing presence in the lives of soldiers as the tragedies of war are unpreventable and inescapable.

A poignant and distressing presence in Owen’s poems is also the marked loss of young lives and their innocence as they are pressured to sacrifice their lives for their country. Owen emphasises the morbid glorification of war and the horrifying loss of a generation of youth. In ‘Arms and the Boy’, Owen tries to warn the younger generation of soldiers during the time of the war, about its realities by personifying the bayonet blade, “keen with hunger of blood”. The incongruous first stanza ends each line with a half rhyme, “blade” and “blood”, and, “flash” and “flesh” illustrating the disharmony that mirrors the unnatural idea of young boys being sent to war. The third stanza then moves to a more animalistic tone as Owen portrays the contrast between the natural and useful ‘weaponry’ of “claws”, “talons” and “antlers” that animals possess to help them hunt and survive, and the unnatural nature of humans having to acquire weaponry that is not inbuilt but rather man-made. As Owen exclaims, “For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple”, the fragility and purity of the boys’ innocence is further emphasised as the readers are left to realise that young boys should be eating apples instead of behaving in a savage manner with military arms. We understand that not only are the weapons taking away the boys’ innocence, but so are the leaders of the war that are providing inexperienced boys weaponry, thus these soldiers are not to blame for the actions that they commit in war. Similarly, in ‘Anthem For Doomed Youth’ Owen conveys the disturbing loss of youth and innocence by exploring the futility of youth in war. He likens soldiers to cattle as he describes how they have no funeral rights and how they are being sent to their slaughter as he exclaims, “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?” Owen also personifies guns as “monstrous” and through the use of onomatopoeia and alliteration, “stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle”, accentuates the doom that awaits these innocent souls. This draws our eyes and ears to the shock imagery which evokes a fearful response so as to warn us against the devastating truth of war. As Owen exclaims, “What candles may be held to speed them all? / Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes” he intends to relate these candles to the tears that little boys have in their eyes emphasising the fact that their youth and innocence is lost and that they are denied a conventional childhood. Through the heart- rending images Owen portrays, we are continually reminded of the ever-present disturbing reality of the tragic loss of young lives and their innocence.

Throughout Wilfred Owen’s anthology of poems, Owen expresses the inescapable and disturbing manifestation in his imagery of the loss of lives, wellbeing and innocence as a result of war. Owen also intends to warn those that glorify the war and those that are unaware of the realities of war against the harsh reality of what actually happens at war. Therefore it is evident that Owen shows the reader the extent of suffering that loss from war can produce.