Futility - Wilfred Owen

Futility - Wilfred Owen

1. Form and Structure

   • Poem is an elegy
     • Elegy - A poem or song composed especially as a lament (expression of grief) for a deceased person.
   • Two stanzas
   • Half rhymes throughout

2. Title

   • Pointlessness of life
   • Anti-proper gander
   • War is pointless
   • Pointless/useless

3. Language

   • Imagery
     • 'Are limbs'
       • Two meanings for 'limbs'
         • Branches of a tree
           • Fits into nature theme
         • Paired appendages
           • Legs and arms
     • 'Woke once the clays of a cold star.'
       • Oxymoron
       • Contrasts with the sun
       • Consonance - hard sounds
     • 'At home, whispering of fields half-sown'
       • 'half-sown' unfinished like his life
       • farmer - could have been his profession before the war
       • 'whispering' is onomatopoeia
     • 'Think how it wakes the seeds'
       • 'wakes' - brings to life
       • 'seeds' - metaphor for young men and their potential

4. Poetic Techniques

   • Personification
     • 'Move him into the sun, Gently its touch awoke him once'
       • Sun is also a metaphor for giver of life
       • Warmth and light
       • 'Gently' contrasts with battlefield and war
   • Both stanzas begin with a command
     • 'Move him'
       • Direct address
       • 'him' represent any soldier
         • Can't move himself
     • 'Think'
   • Question
     • 'Was it for this the clay grew tall?'
       • Mud - comes from the earth
       • Biblical reference - genesis 2.7
         • Man comes from the earth
     • 'To break earths sleep at all?'

5. Comparision

   • Falling Leaves
     • Has a nature theme also

6. Subject and Themes

   • Nature themes and imagery
   • Wilfred Owen was on the front line but he chose to write about grief and despair instead of violence and horror