Disabled Poem Analysis
Essay Preview: Disabled Poem Analysis
Report this essay
Disabled was written during World War I by Wilfred Owen and explores how men changed after going to war, this poem is about a young handsome guy that had a great life ahead of him and gets destroyed by signing to war, he gets wounded in a mentionable place, he now sits in a wheel chair and feels nostalgic about his life before war. Owen explores the themes of nostalgic about his life before war, a wasted youth, loneliness and trauma. In this poem Owen is trying to get the audience to think about how life can change for a normal handsome athletic young man after going to war.
Owens poem is highly figurative in Disabled, but he also writes using literal language to commune his purpose. In the opening stanza Owen uses a vivid image, describing the soldiers “ghastly suit of grey” showing how morbid and depressed he feels, the word ghastly makes us think about the way he felt as a ghost, being ignored by everybody around him. In the word “grey” the connotations of the word are “ageing, loss of glamour”. In the second stanza the idea of being treated like a ghost is touched again by Owen using the metaphor, “all of them touch him like some queer disease” which suggest that people dont want to be near him because they feel uncomfortable near a Disabled person. Later Owen talks about the past using the metaphor “town used to swing so gay” the poet uses this metaphor to show us how the past used to be very happy and pleasant for the wounded soldier. Owen uses “when hed drunk a peg, he thought hed better join” verse to show us how the young man wasted his life for going
Owen portrays the image of past and the present, how the young man feels nostalgic about his life before war, and the present grim reality. In the first stanza he describes the present using images like “ghastly suit of grey” to show us that the soldiers life is a living hell after war. In the second stanza he talks about the past referring to it being happy , he uses the metaphor “town used to swing so gay” with this the reader can imagine how it was for the young man life before it all turned dark and solitary. This poem is makes us explore the theme of war being meaningless because of all the pain and harm it can make to a person. The image is very important for the reader to understand or illustrate what the poet it trying to
Owen uses the