Futility Of War In Wilfred Owen's Poetry

Wilfred Owen was one of the most significant poets of the First World War. Owen encompassed the cruel conditions faced by soldiers and observed the true nature of the battlefield. He expressed his ideas through his compositions in a variety of poems such as ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ and ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth.’ Owen’s perspectives on human conflict were initially represented throughout his encounters amid ‘The Great War.’ Owen’s poetry moves from traditional formulaic forms to a more violent realism, incorporating imagery that powerfully captures the despair of an innocent individual; manipulated into participating in the war. Both poems depict Owen’s perceptions through the use of poetic techniques and features; which place an emphasis upon …show more content…
Owen’s use of emotive Language ‘guttering, choking, drowning’ is used to alert the audience to the grim realities of war to counteract the idealised notions of those at home. Also Owen’s use of descriptive language emphasises on the loss of human life, and the unexpected turn of events, which highlight the futility of war. Owen deliberates this as he enthuses the idea of death upon his friends, triggering concept of consciousness vs. Duty which highly evokes the true nature of war.

In sharp contrast, the sonnet ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ written in 1917, criticises the means of war. The youthful dead of the First World War is lamented in elegiac form. The circumstances of soldiers’ deaths, without proper funeral rites and burial, is bitterly criticised. The sorrow of the soldiers’ loved ones who remain in their memorial. Owen emphasis on the horrors of war that cannot be justified. As he believed that memorial ceremonies, nor prayers can make what just what happened to the lives of individual soldiers on the western