المحاضرة (تم الحفظ تلقائيًا) Futility

Futility By Wilfred Owen (1893_1918)
Wilfred Owen was the best representative of the war poets school. He
was a soldier who participated in the first world war and was killed in the
front only three months before the end of the war. In his poetry, Owen
.shows the horror and inhumanity of war
.The Title "Futility" means uselessness, purposeless, or pointlessness *
The Theme: the poem explores the meaning of existence and the *
.pointlessness of war
Futility" was one of just five poems by Wilfred Owen that were "
published before his death, aged 25, on November 1918. Like all of his
best-known work , it is a war poem that focuses on a group of soldiers
.standing over the dead body of a fallen comrade
The Form: the format of this poem is a short elegiac (an elegy is a poem *
which has been composed as a lament for the dead) lyric like a sonnet.
The use of the sonnet structure may be a response to the patriotic nature
of some war poetry. Sonnets are usually love poems whereas Owen ,here,
is using the poem to reflect on the futility of war and even life. The two
stanzas show a change in focus; firstly, there is a description of the dead
.soldier, the second stanza, however, shifts to the philosophy of life
Part One: In the first stanza the poet asks his friends to take the *
body of the dead soldier to the sun. The speaker says that the touch of the
sun had always woken him before, both at home and in France, but the
sun did not do that in this snowy morning. If there is anything that could
wake him it would be the "kind old" sun. The sun is used here as a central
image that is described in terms of a life-giving force that has the ability
to revive the soldier from his death. The sun is personified as being 'kind'
and 'old' whose 'touch' will provide comfort for the soldier, it is like a
mother who is waking up her child gently and kindly. This was the case
when the soldier was alive. When he was alive, the touch of the sun was
useful for him to wake up, but now the touch of the sun becomes useless.
The poet also says that the sound of the wind "whispering" of the field
was waking him before being killed. Many of Owen's poems focus on the
bond between man and nature, and here nature seems like it could revive
the poet's friend. The soldier was living like that "until this morning", in
the morning the soldier was killed in a snowy field. "and this snow"
symbolizes death. The difference between life and death is expressed
symbolically by the difference between the sun and snow. It is futile to
think that the sun could bring the dead soldier back to life. The poet
personifies the sun when he says that the sun knows that is beyond its
ability. The sun knows that this soldier is in need for a supernatural power
.to bring him back to life
:The Second Part*
At the beginning of the second stanza, the poet gives us
examples to clarify the idea that the sun is the giver of life. The sun
is associated with whole act of creation and generation. The sun is
seen as a divine entity(countless cultures have believed in a sun
god), the sun "wakes" the earth and its seeds into life. The seeds
symbolize death. The seed itself is dead, but it can be brought to
life with the help of the sun. the speaker is confused how the sun
could wake the seeds and animate a fully-formed man(the Biblical
clay of Adam), and now can do nothing. Without the sun the earth
would be a (cold star) made of clay. The poet wonders if the sun
can give life to the earth itself why then it cannot give life to the
soldier(too hard to stir?), the poet asks this rhetorical question
because of the limbs of the man was created skillfully by God. The
body of the soldier is more sensitive than anything else, full of
nerves, still hot, so it can easily go back to life. The sun should be
more capable to bring life to the soldier than the earth. The poet
asks another rhetorical question; "was it for this the clay grew
tall?", man is made of clay, and when the clay being something tall
the result would be a human being. The poet wonders whether God
had created man to die uselessly in these meaningless wars. The
poets shows his criticism , bitterness, and his attitude towards
modern wars which are futile when the soldiers are killed uselessly.
The last few lines take a philosophical twist (O what made fatuous
sunbeams toil/ to break earth's sleep at all), Owen is asking; were
we created just to kill each other? The poem ends on the silence
that follows, leaving the questions unanswered. There is no answer,
there is nothing but blood and senseless death. In these few last
lines, Owen creates transformation of battlefield death, death
particular and individual , into death as the absurd and ultimate
.denial of the value of life

المحاضرة (تم الحفظ تلقائيًا) Futility

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Futility By Wilfred Owen (1893_1918)

.The Title "Futility" means uselessness, purposeless, or pointlessness *

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