How and why does Owen present the destruction of youthful innocence in his War poetry?

– Elen East

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen was a soldier and a prominent First World War poet. In mid-October
1915, Owen enlisted in the Artists Rifles and less than a year later he was commissioned as a second
lieutenant in the Manchester Regiment. During that time in the war, he experienced, like many
others, it’s violence and horrors. He expressed them in many letters to his mother and a series of
poems. During a battle, he was hit by a mortar shell that detonated leaving him among rubble and
the corps of a fellow officer. He was sent to Edinburgh for treatment and met the man who’d
transform his life, Siegfried Sassoon. He mentored Owen and assisted him with his work. Owen
returned to the battle field in 1918 in France where sadly he passed away exactly one week before
the signing of the armistice. I will be exploring how Owen conveys the youth’s destruction by using
poems such as, Dulce Et Decorum Est and Disabled in which he mentions the deception the young
soldiers were subjected to.

Dulce Et Decorum Est is a 28 lined poem which mocks its title, it translates to ‘Sweet and fitting to
die for one’s country’ from Latin. The poem describes the slow and suffocating death of a young
soldier, who is consumed by gas. Owen strips away the image of a heroic soldier in the first stanza,
“Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,” where the soldiers are in fact reduced to appearing old
and weak. He presents the war as emasculating by comparing the men to old women, “coughing like
hags,”, during the march from the frontline. This shows how desperately tired and unhealthy they
are. The use of transferred epithet, on line 10 “clumsy helmets” to describe the young “boys” by
amplifying their innocence. Owen again, emphasising the fear and panic of the young buys by using
verbs such as “stumbling” and “floundering” which again, connects to their childlike clumsiness.
Owen also uses language economically to reflect the frantic hurry the soldier was in. He pulls back
from the event to reflect on his own feelings, suggesting that this was a true experience. He
describes a suffering death opposed on the boys with dynamic verbs like “jolt”. The young soldiers
are being taken over by the poison “gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs” and the blood that is
splattering out of them symbolises their youth and their innocence leaving their soul. These boys are
forever changed by the “incurable sores” on their “innocent tongues”. The closing statement, “The
old lie: Dulce Et decorum est Pro patria mori.” states that the saying that is used all over Britain is
ironic, as it isn’t fitting to die for one’s country so brutally. (the saying coax’ young men)

The Poem disabled focuses on an injured soldier who even though they are quite young, they feel
old and heavily dependent on others. He reflects on his decision to go to war and suggests that they
didn’t actually know what they were getting into. The poem does not use a traditional form of
poetry to describe the soldier’s lack of control over his life. Instead, it uses a shifting structure that
mimics the soldier’s state of mind. By using an omniscient narration, Owen isolates the soldier and
dehumanises him as he has no identity. He is described harshly by alliteration, ‘ghastly suit of grey’
and “legless, sewn short at the elbow.” The use of a caesura creates a sense of disjoint which reflects
his physical state. The soldier is deeply upset at his decision to enlist as, “Voices of boys rang
saddening like a hymn,” this represents the youth he no longer has. He yearns to return to that time
of innocence. There is a joyous and reminiscent tone throughout the first and second stanza until it
reaches an abrupt end, “As the air grew dim,”. The motif that he had wasted his life is repeatedly
used, “he threw away his knees” and it brings him back to his tragic reality due to a careless
decision. As a repercussion woman are of some sort repulsed by him, “All of them touch him like
some queer disease.” The simile that is used, furthers his isolation. Owen incorporates juxtaposition,
“back will never brace” to emphasise the soldier’s feeling, and by using a metaphor, “poured it down
shell-holes till veins ran dry” he describes how it felt to lose his youth. Another metaphor, “hot race”
creates the sense of competition, which links to the nativity of the young men who saw the war as
an opportunity to become a ‘hero’. This links to stanza 4, “Someone had said he’d look a god in
kilts”, a metaphor to emphasize the ‘heroic’ image that was the creation of propaganda. The soldier
finally admits that he was too young to enlist and had lied to do so. He also suggests that his future
wasn’t only his fault but of the officers signing him up who turned a blind eye to this type of re-
occurrence, “Smiling they wrote his lie”. When he returns he is no longer seen as a hero as they
chose to not acknowledge the truth of the conflict. “Some cheered him home, but not as crowds
cheer goal,”.

Both Disabled and Dulce et Decorum Est both cover the exploitation of young boys’ naivety and how
they are coaxed into taking part into a horrifying conflict. The war was glorified and everyone was
told that to fight for King and country was the highest honour, but the reality was very different.
Owens poems try to convey some of the true events and feelings of these young soldiers and how
their youth was robbed from them. Once they had signed up, there was no going back as they would
otherwise be shot for cowardice and the mental and physical suffering they endured during and
after the war lived with them forever.