How does Wilfred Owen present and explore the contrast between past and present in his poem ‘Disabled’?
In the poem Disabled, by Wilfred Owen, the war poet explores the aftermath of war and explains it to the reader. The 1917-written war poem displays Owen’s representation of the traumatic and tormented memories of an adolescent soldier of WWI. The poem expresses the soldier’s recollections leading up to the war as well as a balanced insight on the revelations of his post-war life – reflecting on both the social and emotional isolation subjected to the wounded veterans. The inability to readjust to civilian life is just part of the soldier’s pain. The fluctuating tones of regret, despair and melancholy emphasise the extent of the soldier’s suffering. Owen conveys this through various literary techniques.
Owen employs a plethora of negatives in the first stanza to illustrate the present by using a dark lexical field relating to death, portraying an image of a disabled senior man who has been abandoned by society and yearns for death. At that start of Disabled, with the first words “He sat in his wheeled chair, waiting for dark”, Owen immediately reveals the soldier’s physical state by alluding that he is “legless”. Also, “waiting for dark” implicitly suggests that he is awaiting his death, as there is an absence of a motive to live. Also, a sense of hopelessness rather than anticipation is conveyed through the diction of “waiting”. The word choice of "dark" symbolises night or death, which further portrays the veteran's dispirited emotion. The darkness is then juxtaposed with the “light-blue trees” in the second stanza. This recollection of the past shows he is forever detached from his youth and the bright, vivid colours of the world that he had once experienced. Owen then writes that he sat “[shivering] in his ghastly suit of grey", which indicates his demeanour. The “suit of grey” uses colour to symbolise the soldier as being exceedingly sombre and pessimistic. The soldier is shivering which invokes a cold and unsympathetic environment while also revealing his frightened state. Owen employs alliteration in words “ghastly” and “grey” which acts to emphasise his depression. The suit suggests the concept of superficiality: to judge a person by only their surface, in this case, his physical appearance. The suit of grey contrasts with the “jewelled hilts for daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes; and care of arms; and leave, and pay arrears;" – his expectation of the glory he would receive after the war. Owen uses polysyndeton to slow the pace of the sentence which gives the reader an image of the soldier's thoughts gradually fading towards the reality that he can never relive that life.
There is a definite contrast in the treatment of him by women before and after the war. At the end of the first stanza, Owen writes “Till gathering sleep had mothered them for him”. The personification of his sleep as a mother gathering her children at night implies that sleep is his only source of relief; sleep is the only time when he is not conscious and therefore does not need to suffer. In the phrase “girls glanced lovelier” it suggested the past flirtatious attitudes the women had for the soldier while in the present “All of them touch him like some queer disease.” Owen describes the women as making no effort to conceal their aversion towards him and think that even simply touching him may result in illness, which proves satirical with the previous metaphor of “mothered” present in the first stanza. In line 10, Owen employs euphemism on the action of “[throwing] away his knees” alluding to the devastation of war, referring to the careless and wasteful actions of the young adults which ultimately robbed them of much of their further potential. There is an emphasis on these reckless actions when Owen reiterates: "How cold and late it is!" The soldier exclaims about the temperature and lateness of the time, which is a typical comment from the elderly; as the athletic footballer of his past, it would not have bothered him. "Why don't they come/And put him into bed? Why don't they come?". The epimone emphasises the man’s physical helplessness – he is like a child who needs ‘putting to bed’.
In Disabled there is also a recurring theme of regret shown through his impulsive and rash series of decisions that ultimately led to his enlistment in the army. The phrase “To please his Meg” reveals one of the few reasons the soldier enlisted. “His Meg” refers to his girlfriend. Owen writes “after football, when he’d drunk a peg”. While in this intoxicated state, his based his decision on the attempt to display his strong and masculine qualities. There is then a medial caesura followed by the terminal caesura again emphasising the wastefulness of enlisting. Owen then unveils a memory of the soldier that, “Someone had said he’d look a god in kilts”. The word “god” has a connotation of invulnerability which proves ironic after his injury. The fact that the speaker is only known as “Someone” shows how peripheral this statement was, how one of the few justifications for enlisting was of no value. Owen then writes: “One time he liked a blood-smear down his leg”, showing that the soldier is reminiscing using the past tense and referencing time. The phrase is apropos to sport and glory. If he had developed an injury from playing football, it would give him honour. In the war, the wounds only indicate weakness. Through the language, it is made clear to the reader of the soldier’s passive yet unwilling attitude towards his disability.
Colour is referred to various times to give an insight into his psychological state and how the war affected him and his surroundings. In the line “half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race, and a leap of purple spurted” Owen describes the turning point when the man’s lifetime lapsed and conveys imagery of blood through the alliteration of "l"s. The plosive sound of "p" s and hard sounds of “t” and “d” in the assonance of “purple spurted” creates an image of blood spurting from severed arteries while also symbolising his loss of youth and energy, as represented by the purple. The extended metaphor “poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry” is another example of the image of losing his colour. Purple is associated with royalty, power, luxury, and ambition. Hence, losing this when the “purple spurted” and acts metaphorically to describe the soldier’s once-had power and ambitions. Owen the presents the images of blood again, this time implied by the words “pour” and “veins”. The verb “pour” denotes his blood running from an open wound. There is a comparison between his sacrifices and the blood of Christ which was to atone for this sin of others. By this analogy, the soldier’s blood is “poured” down trenches to save his country. This could be argued that the soldier has lost his colour, which contrasts the joyful tone of the past with the sombre monochrome reality of the present.
In conclusion, Owen contrasts both the past and present conditions of the soldier. The poem allocates the present to the beginning and end of the verse while the past resides in the middle of the poem. Various lines cross over to juxtapose the past and present, emphasising their differences. In turn, making the reader develop a better understanding of how the devastation of war has disfigured the young soldier’s life and attitude –the idea that war causes not only physical but also a psychological pain. The poem aims to invoke a sense of sympathy and respect in the reader towards the veterans of the war—especially the disabled. The language Owen uses in Disabled fluctuates between the buoyant description of his past days as a youthful robust man, one sought-after by women, and the dismal diction describing the man’s grim present life. Almost proving ironic, the soldier fights for his countries freedom yet exchanges his own physical and mental freedom. In a way, Owen prompts the reader to think about the taken for granted freedom of the everyday person and to cherish the moments of life.
Word Count: 1369
In the poem Disabled, by Wilfred Owen, the war poet explores the aftermath of war and explains it to the reader. The 1917-written war poem displays Owen’s representation of the traumatic and tormented memories of an adolescent soldier of WWI. The poem expresses the soldier’s recollections leading up to the war as well as a balanced insight on the revelations of his post-war life – reflecting on both the social and emotional isolation subjected to the wounded veterans. The inability to readjust to civilian life is just part of the soldier’s pain. The fluctuating tones of regret, despair and melancholy emphasise the extent of the soldier’s suffering. Owen conveys this through various literary techniques.
Owen employs a plethora of negatives in the first stanza to illustrate the present by using a dark lexical field relating to death, portraying an image of a disabled senior man who has been abandoned by society and yearns for death. At that start of Disabled, with the first words “He sat in his wheeled chair, waiting for dark”, Owen immediately reveals the soldier’s physical state by alluding that he is “legless”. Also, “waiting for dark” implicitly suggests that he is awaiting his death, as there is an absence of a motive to live. Also, a sense of hopelessness rather than anticipation is conveyed through the diction of “waiting”. The word choice of "dark" symbolises night or death, which further portrays the veteran's dispirited emotion. The darkness is then juxtaposed with the “light-blue trees” in the second stanza. This recollection of the past shows he is forever detached from his youth and the bright, vivid colours of the world that he had once experienced. Owen then writes that he sat “[shivering] in his ghastly suit of grey", which indicates his demeanour. The “suit of grey” uses colour to symbolise the soldier as being exceedingly sombre and pessimistic. The soldier is shivering which invokes a cold and unsympathetic environment while also revealing his frightened state. Owen employs alliteration in words “ghastly” and “grey” which acts to emphasise his depression. The suit suggests the concept of superficiality: to judge a person by only their surface, in this case, his physical appearance. The suit of grey contrasts with the “jewelled hilts for daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes; and care of arms; and leave, and pay arrears;" – his expectation of the glory he would receive after the war. Owen uses polysyndeton to slow the pace of the sentence which gives the reader an image of the soldier's thoughts gradually fading towards the reality that he can never relive that life.
There is a definite contrast in the treatment of him by women before and after the war. At the end of the first stanza, Owen writes “Till gathering sleep had mothered them for him”. The personification of his sleep as a mother gathering her children at night implies that sleep is his only source of relief; sleep is the only time when he is not conscious and therefore does not need to suffer. In the phrase “girls glanced lovelier” it suggested the past flirtatious attitudes the women had for the soldier while in the present “All of them touch him like some queer disease.” Owen describes the women as making no effort to conceal their aversion towards him and think that even simply touching him may result in illness, which proves satirical with the previous metaphor of “mothered” present in the first stanza. In line 10, Owen employs euphemism on the action of “[throwing] away his knees” alluding to the devastation of war, referring to the careless and wasteful actions of the young adults which ultimately robbed them of much of their further potential. There is an emphasis on these reckless actions when Owen reiterates: "How cold and late it is!" The soldier exclaims about the temperature and lateness of the time, which is a typical comment from the elderly; as the athletic footballer of his past, it would not have bothered him. "Why don't they come/And put him into bed? Why don't they come?". The epimone emphasises the man’s physical helplessness – he is like a child who needs ‘putting to bed’.
In Disabled there is also a recurring theme of regret shown through his impulsive and rash series of decisions that ultimately led to his enlistment in the army. The phrase “To please his Meg” reveals one of the few reasons the soldier enlisted. “His Meg” refers to his girlfriend. Owen writes “after football, when he’d drunk a peg”. While in this intoxicated state, his based his decision on the attempt to display his strong and masculine qualities. There is then a medial caesura followed by the terminal caesura again emphasising the wastefulness of enlisting. Owen then unveils a memory of the soldier that, “Someone had said he’d look a god in kilts”. The word “god” has a connotation of invulnerability which proves ironic after his injury. The fact that the speaker is only known as “Someone” shows how peripheral this statement was, how one of the few justifications for enlisting was of no value. Owen then writes: “One time he liked a blood-smear down his leg”, showing that the soldier is reminiscing using the past tense and referencing time. The phrase is apropos to sport and glory. If he had developed an injury from playing football, it would give him honour. In the war, the wounds only indicate weakness. Through the language, it is made clear to the reader of the soldier’s passive yet unwilling attitude towards his disability.
Colour is referred to various times to give an insight into his psychological state and how the war affected him and his surroundings. In the line “half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race, and a leap of purple spurted” Owen describes the turning point when the man’s lifetime lapsed and conveys imagery of blood through the alliteration of "l"s. The plosive sound of "p" s and hard sounds of “t” and “d” in the assonance of “purple spurted” creates an image of blood spurting from severed arteries while also symbolising his loss of youth and energy, as represented by the purple. The extended metaphor “poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry” is another example of the image of losing his colour. Purple is associated with royalty, power, luxury, and ambition. Hence, losing this when the “purple spurted” and acts metaphorically to describe the soldier’s once-had power and ambitions. Owen the presents the images of blood again, this time implied by the words “pour” and “veins”. The verb “pour” denotes his blood running from an open wound. There is a comparison between his sacrifices and the blood of Christ which was to atone for this sin of others. By this analogy, the soldier’s blood is “poured” down trenches to save his country. This could be argued that the soldier has lost his colour, which contrasts the joyful tone of the past with the sombre monochrome reality of the present.
In conclusion, Owen contrasts both the past and present conditions of the soldier. The poem allocates the present to the beginning and end of the verse while the past resides in the middle of the poem. Various lines cross over to juxtapose the past and present, emphasising their differences. In turn, making the reader develop a better understanding of how the devastation of war has disfigured the young soldier’s life and attitude –the idea that war causes not only physical but also a psychological pain. The poem aims to invoke a sense of sympathy and respect in the reader towards the veterans of the war—especially the disabled. The language Owen uses in Disabled fluctuates between the buoyant description of his past days as a youthful robust man, one sought-after by women, and the dismal diction describing the man’s grim present life. Almost proving ironic, the soldier fights for his countries freedom yet exchanges his own physical and mental freedom. In a way, Owen prompts the reader to think about the taken for granted freedom of the everyday person and to cherish the moments of life.
Word Count: 1369