Wilfred Owen

Dulce et Decorum Est

Techniques
Stanza 1
Sarcasm/irony: opposite of poems actual content (title)
Hyperbole: soldiers are old before their time and rendered vulnerable
(Bent double, like old beggars under sacks)
Onomatopoeia: recreates scene to draw in audience (Knock-kneed,
coughing like hags)
Alliteration: emphasises exhaustion (Men marched asleep.)
Simile: not only comparing them as dirty, ragged and sick, but a
connotation of being uncared for (like old beggars under sacks coughing
like hags)
Hyperbole: stresses current condition (All went lame; all blind)
Metaphor: highlights impact of war on men (Drunk with fatigue)
Connotation: hardship of war (deaf even to the hoots)
Punctuation: creates horror of the situation

Stanza 2
Instructional language and repetition: increases tension and creates
sense of urgency (Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!)
Assonance: used to highlight his experience of drowning (Dim, through the
misty panes and thick green light)
Verb and adjective: undercut any romantic image of war (An ecstasy of
fumbling)
Simile: secures our empathy (And floundering like a man in fire or lime)
Simile: likens the gas to the sea to show suffocating effects (As under a
green sea, I saw him drowning)

Stanza 3
Paradox: Sight acts as a synecdoche- standing in for a speaker as a whole
Understatement: the dreams are actually nightmares (In all my dreams)

Stanza 4
Negative descriptive language: to show war is not glorified (If in some
smothering dreams you too could pace)
Inclusive language: forces the reader to empathise (Behind the wagon
that we flung him in)
Alliteration: used to stress the horrific sight (And watch the white eyes
writhing in his face)
Ironic simile: a soldier is a victim of the evil at war (like a devils sick of
sin)
Repetition (of if): shows Owens realisation his message may not be
accepted
 Capitalisation: shows the falsity of the lie (Lie)
Rhyme: an ironic agreement in sound which exposes the falsity of the
propaganda

Notes
Quality of meaning in bent double- soldiers have become like old beggars
and coughing like hags with the similes showing they are the antithesis of
the stereotype of strong, masculine soldiers emphasising they are
physically derelict and mentally numb, which is reinforced by the alliteration
men marched asleep
Repetition of all emphasises the extent of their suffering, whilst the parallel
construction of all went lame; all blind combined with the pluralised men
emphasises the universal misery
Aural imagery is conveyed through words such as trudge, blood-shod,
drunk and tired to convey the misery and oppressiveness of the situation
created by the plodding rhythm of the opening stanza
Dramatic imagery is conveyed through the imperative Gas! GAS! Quick,
boys! with the capitalisation and exclamation marks highlighting the
urgency of the situation
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light/ As under a green sea I
saw him drowning -the colour imagery and simile conveys not only the
physical impact of the horror of war but the psychological impact as he
retains the nightmare of the man drowning , showing youths lost
innocence
The psychological impact is reinforced by the use of grotesque verbs such
as guttering, choking, drowning, smothering, hanging and gargling as
Owen catalogues the physical and psychological suffering of youth who
have lost their innocence
Helpless sight- paradoxical synecdoche- the soldiers sight is fine but he is
helpless
Metaphors of drunk and deaf show the desensitisation of the soldiers
Simile floundering like a man in fire or lime secures the audience empathy
as we sense their powerlessness and pity men trapped by war
Active verb- flung him in shows their is no honour or glory in war
Ironic simile- like a devils sick of sin is ironic as although the soldier
appears to be a devil through partaking in killing he is really a victim of
warfare
Come gargling from froth corrupted lungs obscene as cancer, bitter as the
cud combines dramatic imagery and similes to shock those at home out of
acceptance of the propaganda at home that said it was noble to sacrifice
your life in battle
My friend- bitter tone shows that he believes that propaganda is a tale for
children and adults should face the reality of war and soldiers deaths and
not glorify them
 The rhyme glory and mori is an ironic agreement in sound which exposes
the falsity of the propaganda
The change in pronouns from first person to pluralisation we shows he has
used intensely personal experience to create a poem where lessons apply
to us all about the cruelty and horror of war and the physical and
psychological damage it causes

Anthem for Doomed Youth

Techniques
Assonance: mournful tone (doomed youth)
Adjective: negative tone- sense of overwhelming fate that humans cant
reverse (doomed)
Rhetorical question: underlines Owens belief of Whats the point? (What
passing-bells for these who die as cattle?)
Simile: humanity is stripped from soldiers (these who die as cattle)
Repetition: stresses the nature of their death (Only)
Personification, alliteration and onomatopoeia: combine to enhance the
cruelty and brutality of war (Only the stuttering rifles rapid rattle)
Negative connotations: stressed by the alliterative refuted use of no, nor
showing Christian rites are actually mockeries
Hyphen and semi-colon: create pauses stressing no funeral rites can be
given
Personified sibilant phrase: emphasises sadness and impact of their
deaths at home (And bugles calling for them from sad shires)
Reflective tone: stresses how war strips men of human dignity (What
candles may be held to speed them all?)
Rhetorical question: indicates shift in poem- the poem is now comparing a
right and fitting death to death at war
Extended metaphor: reinforces the idea that there is no good send-off for
youth who die (glimmer, shine, candles)
Tone of sestet: softer and more compassionate mourning of the lost youth
Alliteration: creates a somber, solemn atmosphere (And each slow dusk a
drawing down of blinds)
Rhyming couplet: emphasises the impact of the soldiers deaths (patient
minds drawing down of blinds)

Notes
The adjectives rapid and hasty emphasise the quick firing of rifles, whilst
the alliteration in rifles rapid rattle is aural imagery of the battlefield as it is
further combined with onomatopoeia such as patter and wailing shells
emphasises the horror of the battlefield
The archaic language of orisons is used by Owen to show that the modern
world that was cruelly born in WW1 has discarded traditional funeral rites,
 symbolising they have also discarded the spiritual value that was once
placed on human life
He is also criticising the Churchmen who saw war as a holy cause when the
reality was actually against religious value
The alliterative negatives in no mockeries now for them; no prayers nor
bells;/Nor any voice of mourning) emphasises the horror and suffering of
war
The only choirs accompanying the soldiers deaths is that of gunfire and
wailing shells- the onomatopoeia emphasises that there would be no
comfort in traditional funeral rites as their deaths are a waste
The sibilant personified sad shires shows the change in world values as
previously each of these deaths would have been mourned individually as
members of a community, not dehumanised as part of mass destruction
The main concern about the pity of war can be seen in the use of
personification in monstrous guns as there is no dignity in anonymous
deaths, just as a waste of youth
He re-emphasises this idea with his use of boys and girls in the poems
conclusion
The rhetorical question that opens this sestet suggests the soldiers will only
be remembered through the grief of their loved ones. The government and
church will not mourn for them
The symbolism in each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds- symbolises
not only the end of day English custom of closing the blinds whilst in
mourning, but also the drawing down or end of the soldiers lives
The emotive language of tenderness of patient minds establishes grieving
at home for the soldiers will be greater than grieving on the battlefield
The brevity of the poem with its tight structure and economic language is
used by Owen to reinforce the soldiers unnaturally shortened life span and
shows Owens disdain for the war
However, Owen shows understanding of the powerlessness of those at
home to stop the senseless killing of the doomed youth making the poem a
combination of poignancy and bitterness, emphasising his criticism of the
brutality of war

Futility
Techniques
Instructional language: heightened by the use of present tense
imperatives (Move him in the sun)
Symbol of life: depicted in positive term as a gentle force (sun)
Personification: warmth/ gentle giver of life and heat- a possible saviour
for this man. (Gently its touch awoke him once)
Nostalgic references: to home with connotations to peace and safety (at
home)
 Assonance: the letter o creates a long drawn out sound, reflecting his
distance from home (whispering of field unsown)
Placement of always emphasises the contrast with until- shows theyre
desperate and refuse to accept he is dead
Personification: gentle and father figure (The kind old sun will know)
Extended metaphor: sun as father and developer of life itself (Think how it
wakes the seeds)
Allusion: to scientific origins of life on Earth (Woke, once, the clays of a
cold star)
Punctuation: dashes and commas separating out each phrase suggests
searching for signs of life
Rhetorical question: becomes more and more demanding and ironic or
bitter in tone as they increase in number

Notes
Owen speak of the problem of evil in the world , and the question - if human
existence is inevitably prone to evil then life is futile
The title of this poem captures this theme: the pointlessness of human
sacrifice and life itself
The poem is an example of how Owens poetry is also relevant to larger
issues of human existence
Owen challenges the belief of the glory of war and the honour of sacrificing
ones life for ones country
Poem opens gently but dramatically with the imperative verb in the present
tense: Move him into the sun is a positive gesture that is hoped will be
reviving
Owen juxtaposes the tranquility and beauty of rural England with the
hideous battlefield of France: Gently its touch awoke him once,/At home,
whispering of fields unsown
Now the suns warmth is powerless to raise and Owen contrasts the suns
rejuvenating warmth with the wintry world of death, shown through the
metaphor until this morning and this snow
Owen closes the first stanza in speculation that the dead soldier might
nonetheless be raised: If anything might rouse him now/The kind old sun
will know. The affectionate personification of the sun might seem
encouraging, but can also be a way of dismissing the sun, mocking it.
It has a child-like, nursery rhyme quality, which suggests the speaker knows
the soldier cannot be roused, although he wants to believe he can be
In the second stanza, Owen begins focusing on the soldiers body, but
processes from his death to a questioning of the entire universe and the
reason for our existence. The sun is praised here as the first life giver and
as the perpetual renewer of creation, so why can it not revive the body?
This is shown through the quotes Think how it wakes the seeds,-/Woke,
once, the clays of a cold star and Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are
sides,/Full-nerved,- still warm,- too hard to stir?
 The reference to clay is a biblical illusion as God breathed life into Adam by
breathing life into clay, suggesting the creation of all life that surely the
power of the sun could raise
The anguished tone of the poem increases through the use of rhetorical
questions was it for the the clay grew tall? How can human beings be cut
down without any resurrection?
The poem questions the meaning of life what made fatuous sunbeams
toil/To break earths sleep at all? Here Owen has moved from the
personified kindness of the sun to the idea the sun is now fatuous- idiotic
and purposeless
The passion of his query is emphasised by O as he wonders why the
Earth, which permits such cruelty to its creatures, was ever brought to life in
the first place
Owens uses of three questions in the second stanza makes the audience
query their own existence, not simply the fate of the soldier
Futility expresses Owens rejection of the idea of goodness and the
purpose of human existence
The tone of the poem is despairing. The short, simple images and colloquial
language makes the poem universally accessible and as such, the poem
has lasting relevance through its moral questions about the purpose for life

Insensibility
Techniques
Stanza 1
Personification: highlights their emotion and stress (Can let their veins run
cold)
Enjambment: Evokes the idea that as the men marched, the poet
contemplates the realities of what men were forced to become (Or makes
their feet/Sore)
Explicit diction: soldiers become so brutalised that they are then to mock
war at the expense of empathising (Whom no compassion fleers)
Archaic language: emphasises their desensitisation- metaphor (cobbled
with their brothers)
Nature imagery/metaphor: everything is being leached from soldiers (The
front line withers)
High modality: poets personal experience (But they are troops who fade,
not flowers)
Metaphor: not seen as human at all. They are replaced when they die and
are collateral damage (Men, gaps for filling)
 Euphemism: objectifying humanity (Losses)
Grim irony: So many corpses- they are part of the soldiers lives now
(Longer, but no one bothers)

Stanza 2
General pronoun: Some experience loss of personal integrity
Repetition: they have lost care for themselves (Even themselves or for
themselves)
Negative imagery: describes their copy mechanism (Dullness best
solves)
Personification: represents psychological reaction to stress and tension of
situation. (The tease and doubt of shelling)
Personification: shows how the men rationalise their survival to achieve a
genuine sense of dissocation from the humanity of their actions (And
Chances strange arithmetic)
Metaphor: for the lack of calculation in the selection of victims

Stanza 3
Repetition: mocks their spirit and imagination which has been taken away
(Happy)
Irony: people who are happy are lacking intellectual sensibility (Happy are
those who lose imagination)
Contrast: between the physical and psychological burdens (Their spirit
drags no pack)
Inversion: adds emphasis (can not more ache)
Repetition: which stresses what they have been forced to experience (Of
the hurt of the colour of blood forever)
Metaphor: for the fear and initial panic of death that has become dull from
its consistency (And terrors first constriction over)
Metaphor: of deliberate burning away of memory/guilt (Their senses in
some cautery of battle)
Juxtaposition: of laughing and dying shows the blurring of emotional lines
(Now long since ironed,/Can laugh among the dying, unconcerned)

Stanza 4
Irony: those at home are ignorant of the truth of war (Happy the soldier
home, with not a notion)
Euphemism: for death (And many sighs are drained)
Juxtaposition: the uninitiated and the taciturn veteran (When we march
taciturn)
Metaphor and visual imagery: They are moving towards their death (The
long, forlorn, relentless trend)

Stanza 5
Change in perspective: to generals view
 Anaphora: emphasises the loss and madness setting in at war (Nor sad,
nor proud,/Nor curious at all)
Repetition: of negative terms, stresses their emotional deterioration (Not
mortal overmuch Nor sad, nor proud/ Nor curious He cannot)

Stanza 6
Metaphor: for the callous and unfeeling (as stones)
Bitterness: of Owens rebuke (Wretched are they)
Anaphora: emphasises the angry retort at the nothingness of the voices
(Whatever mourns/Whatever shares)

Notes
A bitter comment on the futility of war and its role in turning into robots
Owen explores the paradox of mindless soldiers being happy men through
the extensive use of irony, para-rhyme and figurative language
Satire is used by Owen in the title and to structure the poem
The simplicity of the title Insensibility is ambiguous as it contains a dual
perspective
The audience wonders whether the title refers to the soldiers forced
insensibility in war or to the insensibility of people who have never been
confronted with the idea of war
The juxtaposition of the two ideas is further highlighted through the
structure of the poem. The poem is often seen as a response to the
question Who is the happy warrior/Who is he/That every man in arms
should wish to be? asked by William Wordsworth in his poem The
Character of the Happy Warrior.
Where Wordsworths poem is a glorification of war, Owens tone is bitter
and cynical
This is further accentuated as the poem is written as an ode, divided into six
parts, which, instead of praising war, actually condemns it
In the first stanza, Owen presents his first ideal of the happy soldier. His
ironic attitude towards this is shown through the paradox of happy men
whose veins run cold and whom no compassion fears. The paradox is the
soldiers belief that the only way to survive war is by destroying l human
emotion
The juxtaposition of alleys cobbled with their brothers left gaps for filling is
reflective of the two contrasting outlooks of the soldiers and the generals in
London towards their fellow men
The juxtaposition puts further emphasis on the dehumanising effect of the
war on soldiers, whose worth is measured in numbers rather than emotions
The use of cacophonic diction such as cobbled allows the reader to
empathise with the soldiers hostility
Through this paradox Owen effectively highlights the desensitising effect of
war not only on the soldiers but also on the general public
 As the poem progresses, the portrayal of soldiers as mechanical becomes
more prominent
This is reflected in the second stanza as Owen highlights that dullness best
solves the effects of the war
Repetition of this idea in soldiers who love imagination are also happy, as
they have enough to carry. Owens portrayal of imagination as a physical
burden emphasises the need to be insensible in the war
Owens shocking sense of casualness is highlighted through the use of
para-rhymes such as shelling and shilling, and red and rid. The use of
para-rhyme adds to the pace and action of the poem as well as a sense of
disturbance and hostility to the mood of the poem
This hostile atmosphere is accentuated through the last line of the third
stanza can laugh among the dying, unconcerned. this hostile statement
creates empathy for the soldiers and helps the audience realise the true
horrors of war
Owens use of multiple perspectives in each stanza aids in forming a
connection between the scenarios. In the fourth stanza, the focus shifts
from war to the use of propaganda in the homeland
The use of personal pronouns he and we in he sings along the
march/Which we march taciturn provides the duality of meaning for
march- the first idea represents the glory and pride of war whilst the
second exposes the naivety of this idea as the reality is far different
The harsh reality of war is further accentuated by the quantitive diction of
larger day to huger night. This provides the reader with a sense of infinity
that the horror of war will never end, emphasised by the symbolism of
huger night as the soldiers death
This change in tone from hopeful to hopeless helps juxtapose the
insensitivity of the soldiers with the insensitivity of their homelands
In the fifth stanza the tone of the poem becomes more personal and pitiful,
rather than being distant
Owens internal conflict is explored- how can he be wise and an insensible
soldier? We see his dilemma as in the first stanza he states that soldiers
are not flowers for poets fearful fooling
The extent of his emotional conflict is reflected as he juxtaposes his soul
with the blunt and lashes eyes of the dead soldier
The use of death and gruesome imagery reiterates the dehumanisation of
soldiers, allowing the readers to empathise with Owen
Within the sixth stanza the tone is angry, as Owen has an outburst at the
ignorant and cruel authorities in London that send soldiers to their death
This is emphasised through his imagery in describing authorities as
wretched and dullards who are as stone. Through the metaphor of stone
the poet presents the authorities as cold and oblivious
The difference between the two categories of insensibility: that of the
soldiers and that of the authorities is made clear by choice they made
 themselves immune with high modality of the word choice clarifies the
soldiers were forced to be immune in order to survive war
However, the ending lines of the poem whatever shares the eternal
reciprocity of tears confronts the readers to decide who the whatever is
referring to: the poet, the authorities, or the family, who mourns the dead
soldiers. This is what makes the poem so powerful

Strange Meeting
Techniques
Stanza 1
Low modality: establishes the dreamlike tone (It seemed)
First person: suggests the speaker delivers but the second speaker
delivers the scathing anti-war message
Metaphor: for the descent to Hell (Down some profound tunnel)
Allusion: suggests the enormous scale of destruction (titanic wars)
Juxtaposition and negative connotations: an underground place filled
with corpses in Hell (Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred)
Atmospheric tension: built up through emotive verbs and adjectives- gives
greater impact to final line (Lifting distressful hands as if to bless)
Repetition: creates irony- smiling in Hell (his smile his dead smile)
Horrific recognition: he is in Hell shown through a combination of
alliteration, repetition and para-rhyme

Stanza 2
Hyperbole: conveys the worst fears and outer scars of torment (With a
thousand pains)
Irony: Hell is providing them with an escape from the Hell of war (Yet no
blood reached there from the upper ground,/And no guns thumped, or down
the flues made moan)
Double entendre: strange as in unknown and also an unlikely alliance
(Strange friend, But mocks the steady running of the hour)
Dialogue: between the two enemies as they rue what they have lost
Parallels: drawn between the two soldiers (Whatever hope is yours,/Was
my life also)
 Alliteration: loss of potential influence on other (might many men have
laughed)
Assonance: draws attention to the contrasting sides of his character (And
of my weeping something had been left)
Repetition: pure pity of war (The pity of war, the pity war distilled)
Repetition: denotes the savagery of future wars (They will be swift with the
swiftness of the tigress)
Archaic language: cost of war is blood (Then, when much blood had
clogged their chariot-wheels)

Stanza 3
Paradox: of enemy and friend as their enmity is eroded by shared
experience (I am the enemy you killed, my friend)
Pronouns: show separation, but coming together in unity (I and you, then
us in the last line)
Ellipsis: suggests he can never sleep so war will never end (Let us sleep
now.)

Notes
Rather than describing the violence of war on the battlefield, the poet
attacks war by instead placing the soldiers in hell, centring the poem around
the civil conversation between two dead enemies
This strips away the barrier between these two enemies and as a result,
evokes not anger but pit, compassion and regret for both soldiers
By juxtaposing the tranquility of peace and violent imagery of war and using
precise diction and irony, the poet emphasises the cruel destructive pain
war inflicts on mankind as neither soldier wins but lies helpless in hell due
to their involvement in the war
The tone is sombre and regretful, shown through the images of dull tunnel,
sullen hall, titanic wars had groined
Phrases such as encumbered sleepers groaned use onomatopoeia and
personification to add to the death-like setting
By depicting Hell not as a traditional fiery pit of destruction but as a mind-
numbing plane of existence, without strong feelings or emotions,
establishes a setting of pity, rather than anger
In stark contrast to the numbness of Hell, the poet conveys the pain and
regret of war using horrific imagery
The poet evokes pain as a humanising quality so that we pity the soldier
The metaphor of carnal, vicious, swiftness of the tigress is used to
describe the violent attacks during the war while the image of the soldiers
face ingrained with a thousand pains uses internal rhyme to stir pity
This carnal ruthlessness is emphasised further through the metaphor of the
pity war distilled as the poet illustrates how war strips away a mans ability
to reason and be compassionate
 He also uses the metaphor of a dirty wound to describe the war itself
metaphorically the soldier alludes to his regret or adding to the war now that
he is aware of the ugliness of it
Thus when the soldier states the foreheads of man have bled where no
wounds were, Owen uses a metaphor to express his disgust at the
ugliness of war and its ability to ruin the have bled where no wounds were,
for Owen believes that wars only purpose is to disfigure or ruin mankinds
existence
In the archaic language blood that clogged the chariot-wheels, both literally
and metaphorically addresses the idea that war will always be part of the
human condition
The poet also draws sympathy by juxtaposing these violent images with the
tranquility of peace that the soldiers would have had without the war
The regretful tone in went hunting wild/After the wildest beauty in the world
and the use of personification emphasises what he lost when he died in the
war
The pain and regret is only heightened by the helplessness the soldier
feels, for he knows the war will continue men will go content with what we
spoiled/ Or discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled emphasised by the
emotive language used
Although the soldier knows the truth about war, he knows mankind will
continue to fight wars. He feels helpless because as he cannot tell his
comrades the truth before he is dead, the truth remains untold and this
helplessness effectively shows how war strips men of any control over their
lives
By emphasising the soldiers loss of control over his life as a result of the
war, Owen effectively shows how war amounts to nothing but destruction
Owen effectively illustrates the universal destructive nature of war in the
final stanza, which contains a clever twist of irony
Owen does not reveal the identity of the second soldier so the phrases with
piteous recognition and strange friend surprise the reader that the two
soldiers became friends, joined by common experiences, although they
were once enemies
It is only after effectively establishing empathy for the second soldier by
vividly describing his pain that Owen reveals the identity of the second
soldier- the enemy the narrator killed on earth, shown through the irony of I
am the enemy you killed, my friend
The irony heightens the cruelty of war because the soldiers identity as the
enemy does not lessen the pain he suffered in war as it merely place the
narrator in the same position whatever hope was yours/was my life also
By making the two men converse as friends when they were really enemies
in life, Owen emphasises that the pain is universal for both sides
The fact that both men are in Hell, condemned for slaughtering others,
gives the poem its power and Owen uses the ellipses in the final stanza to
 suggest that not only for these soldiers, but for all mankind, war will never
end- a prophetic condemnation
Owen felt it was his duty to convey the truth about war and the terrible scars
it left on all

The Next War

Techniques
Inclusive pronouns: he and other soldiers have experienced death or near
death experiences, but others have not (weve walked quite friendly up to
Death)
Deranged humour/irony: war is no joke (Wars a joke for me and
you/While we know such dreams are true)
Colloquial language: desensitised to death (Sat down and eaten with him,
cool and bland)
Personification: of Death as a vulgar and bad-mannered person
(Pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand)
Enjambment: disrupts the rhythm of the poem to reflect the description of
war (Hes spat at us with bullets and hes coughed/Shrapnel)
Onomatopoeia: a reminiscent sound of the shells falling (whistled)
Anaphora: to show that death is sometimes welcomed during the war and
shows the soldiers accepting view of death(We laughed we leagued
We laughed)

Notes
Friendly relationship with Death not based on fear but companionship.
Unwelcome, yet unavoidable companion, cannot be repelled or ignored
However they are still aware of their ultimate fates whilst in his presence,
and yet they know that death and man are still rivals
Ironic of how he presents war as a picnic
Death with them constantly
Uses personification to demonstrate horrors of current war
Personal pronoun use- Weve, him, his, our, we. Seems like Owen is with
them. Excludes those who werent present on the battlefields with Owen
and the other soldiers. Could be a result of knowing that others will not
understand what they went through (and seeing them as part of the
government who sent them to war), and share a bond in having a friend
like death
Capital letter of Death- personified, acceptance of it
 Death was never the enemy of ours!- they caused death and it was
inflicted on them, and was accepted as part of life. It seems unnatural that
they are friends with him
Death shouldnt be a friend, it should be an enemy, and men should fight
against death. wars shouldnt be against land and money, it should be
against death
Soldiers learn that death cannot be fought against so it is useless to kick
against its powers

Symbolism
>flags, related back to the fact that Owens poetry is focused on the
wastefulness of war. Flags show how land is fought over
>Siegfried Sassoons summation (war is a joke) implies that the best way
to cope is by a combination of laughter and stoicism
Imagery
> Death is personified (eaten with him, green thick odour of his breath, spat
bullets). He seems to be an old friend, but later on in poem appears to be
feared
> Owen asserts that its insane to fight and die for theses countries when
nothing will change as a result
> Not dispelled by graphic images of gore/suffering, instead uses ironic
tone of a friendly relationship with death
> The soldiers courage which didnt writhe is praised most in this poem
> Battlefield takes great courage and laughter in the face of death and
stoic acceptance of what cannot be changed

Themes
Endurance
Inevitability of future
Stoic endurance of soldiers
Positive attitude of men who had to accept death
Raises admiration rather than sympathy
The fact that they were able to still manage to function and fight provokes
admiration
Monosyllabic words (cool, thick, wept) imitates short loud sounds of battle
Onomatopoeic words (spat, coughed)
Talks about how courage doesnt waver
We whistled a while- coping strategy, like we laughed, shows trying to
forget about whats happening
Death
Reoccurring extended metaphor of loss and waste
Raises issues of what can be learned from current horrors of war and vain.
They hope that death wont take as many lives in the future
Language
Jocular tone- largely colloquial, use of jargon (mess tin, old chum)
 Serves to down play their grim world
Repetition of We laughed shows how men try to cope by putting horror
behind them
Figures of Speech
Personification and extended metaphor makes reader aware of how death
has impacted them (very real and disgusting)
Onomatopoeia and alliteration- auditory devices used to capture sounds of
deaths weaponry of bullets and artillery
Isnt described as the stereotyped view of the grim reaper, seems more
distorted and disgusting