Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Wilfred Owne "Disabled"
Wilfred Owen is one of the greatest war poets to have ever graced the land and the brutal battles of war. He like many others during the time of WWI were drafted in not only to serve but also into the idea of the glory and praise that comes among being a solider or officer. "Disabled" I believe is a poem that Owen wrote to show all the harsh reality of war and the hell that those who serve must go through after they leave the battle field. The poem begins by describing how the young solider feels after returning home. "He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,/And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,/Legless, sewn short at elbow." (Line1-3) I believe that with these opening lines the reader immediately feels the darkness and suffering that the man telling his story is feeling. The suffering is not only due to the horrific scenes he may have seen in the war but to the scenes that surround him in his present. He comes back to a town that was once happy, full of children playing their games, and young girls that in his younger days would've given him the time of day. Unfortunately as the story goes on the reader soon sees that all that has changed. The young man now feels much older though he may not actually be. He recalls the moment that he suffered the injury that would leave him without his leg and remembers the day he decided to enlist. He recalls that moment by saying, "He thought he better join--He wonders why." Why did he let others tell him there would be glory; he was so young and naive he never thought that he would one day come back to a place where only one man would thank him for his bravery and where the women would over look him to care for the men who were whole and complete. At the end of the poem he ends the story by asking why no one will come and put him to bed and why no one will come at all and in reality that simple question is the question that lingers throughout the entire poem. "Why don't they come?" Why does everyone look at him then look the other way.
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