Futility - Wilfred Owen

Attachments:

• Mametz Wood - Owen Sheers
• The Yellow Palm - Robert Minhinnick
• Flag - John Agard
• Extract from Out of the Blue - Simon Armitage
• next to of course god america i - E.E.Cummings
• Belfast Confetti - Ciaran Carson
• Poppies - Jane Weir

1. Form and Structure
   1. Poem is an elegy

      Annotations:

      • Elegy - A poem or song composed especially as a lament (expression of grief) for a deceased person.
   2. Two stanzas
   3. Half rhymes throughout
2. Title
   1. Pointlessness of life
   2. Anti-proper gander
   3. War is pointless
   4. Pointless/useless
3. Language
   1. Imagery
      1. 'Are limbs'
         1. Two meanings for 'limbs'
            1. Branches of a tree
               1. Fits into nature theme
            2. Paired appendages
               1. Legs and arms
      2. 'Woke once the clays of a cold star.'
         1. Oxymoron
         2. Contrasts with the sun
         3. Consonance - hard sounds
      3. 'At home, whispering of fields half-sown'
         1. 'half-sown' unfinished like his life
         2. farmer - could have been his profession before the war
         3. 'whispering' is onomatopoeia
      4. 'Think how it wakes the seeds'
         1. 'wakes' - brings to life
         2. 'seeds' - metaphor for young men and their potential
4. Poetic Techniques
   1. Personification
      1. 'Move him into the sun, Gently its touch awoke him once'
         1. Sun is also a metaphor for giver of life
         2. Warmth and light
         3. 'Gently' contrasts with battlefield and war
   2. Both stanzas begin with a command
      1. 'Move him'
         1. Direct address
         2. 'him' represent any soldier
            1. Can't move himself
      2. 'Think'
   3. Question
      1. 'Was it for this the clay grew tall?'
         1. Mud - comes from the earth
         2. Biblical reference - genesis 2.7
            1. Man comes from the earth
      2. 'To break earths sleep at all?'
5. Comparision
   1. Falling Leaves
      1. Has a nature theme also
6. Subject and Themes
   1. Nature themes and imagery
   2. Wilfred Owen was on the front line but he chose to write about grief and despair instead of violence and horror