Elements of Modernism in " Strange Meeting " and " Futility " " Strange Meeting " Simile PDF

Preview

Summary

Elements of Modernism in “Strange Meeting” and “Futility” By Afifeh Ghaedi “Strange Meeting” Simile The power of Strange Meeting lies in Owen’s use of language rather than in his creation of imagery. Owen’s similes and metaphors in Strange Meeting are not simple and straightforward. In line eight th...

Description

Elements of Modernism in “Strange Meeting” and “Futility” By Afifeh Ghaedi

“tra ge Meeti g Simile The power of Strange Meeting lies i O e s use of la guage rather tha i his reatio of i agery. O e s similes and metaphors in Strange Meeting are not simple and straightforward. In line eight the soldier lifts his ha ds as if to less . It is possi le to read this as a o pariso , a si ple si ile des ri i g the way the hands are raised. However the whole idea of friendship and forgiveness works against that interpretation; he is in fact literally blessing his killer. The ha ds raised as if to less are i fa t raised i blessing. O e des ri es people of the future as ei g s ift ith the s ift ess of the tigress l. impression of speed and violence more terrible than the contemporary war.

gi i g the

Metaphors eauty.... o ks the steady ru i g of the hour l.20 - The mocking nature of beauty is a personification closely linked with the metaphor of time running out. This image comes from an hourglass where sand runs through a waisted flask to mark the passage of time. u h lood has logged the hariot heels l.33 - This is figurati e o ly i part. The hariot heels suggest an ancient war but also represent the machinery which drives forward any and every war. The desire to ash the fro s eet ells l. is a pi ture of ho the soldier lo gs to lea se a d purify the bloodshed in so many battles. The image of living, healing water comes from the Bible where it is an image of healing, cleansing and the eternal life offered by Jesus (see John 4:7-14, Revelation 7:17). It is also found in The Send-off here the fe retur i g fro the attle field seek out illage ells . The blood is not metaphorical. Allusions I ould ha e poured out y spirit ithout sti t (bible) l.37 - This shows the willingness of the soldier to ake sa rifi es for truth. The idea is that the soldier ould sa rifi e his spirit l. i the ause of freedom, rather than blood. This echoes O e s perso ifi atio of ar l. hi h results i the distilli g of pity. The literal product of the distillation process is pure spirit. Owen gives us a picture of war being reduced to pity. The man wants to pour out this pity without holding anything back. The biblical sources of this metaphor would have been very familiar to Owen with his strong Bible-based upbringing. (More on 'I will pour out my spirit'...: There are no fewer than four biblical references to God promising to pour out his spirit, which is the phrase used by the dead soldier in Strange Meeting. 1. Isaiah 44:3 For I ill pour ater o the thirsty la d, a d strea s o the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit o your offspri g, a d y lessi g o your des e da ts. 2. Ezekiel 39:29 I ill o lo ger hide y face from them, for I will pour out my Spirit on the people of Israel, de lares the So ereig Lord.

3. Joel 2:28. A d after ard, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old e ill drea drea s, your you g e ill see isio s. 4. Acts 2:17 I the last days , God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters ill prophesy, your you g e ill see isio s, your old e ill drea drea s. Notice the close association between the out-pouring of the Spirit with the dreams and prophecies that are so central to Strange Meeting) Foreheads of e ha e led here o ou ds ere l.39 - This is a metaphor for psychological suffering. It is also a reference to Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:44: And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. The biblical image re-enforces the sacrifice that the soldier is prepared to make. The image of Christ as sacrificial victim and peacemaker suggests the o ept of the greater lo e hi h so a y sho ed i the war. More on Greater Love...: Christ says to his followers: My o a d is this: Lo e ea h other as I ha e lo ed you. Greater lo e has o o e tha this: to lay do o e s life for o e s frie ds. John 15:12-13. The ess of ar l.38 - The stra ge frie d is ot ho e er prepared to pour out his spirit o the ess of ar . A esspit as a pri iti e ethod of olle ti g se age. This stro g, rude i age refle ts the depth of feeling Owen and the soldier have about war. Personification Owen uses personification more than metaphor in Strange Meeting 

  

That sulle hall of l.10: Hell takes on a human mood No gu s...do the flues Doomed Youth

ade

oa

l.13: reminds us of the angry guns of Anthem for

The pity ar distilled l.25: suggests that war is the distiller who creates the spirit or essence of pity. Something which is distilled is said to be purified; it is reduced to its essence. Vai itadels l.33: the wall-less fortresses of the future reflect the vanity of humanity (or it ould e that they ha e ee o stru ted i ai as they ill ot hold a k the forces of destruction).

The perso ifi atio of pla es, eapo s a d the ar itself

akes the stra ge frie d s

essage stro ger.

Oxymoron Owen uses oxymorons i the dead s ile l. of the Stra ge frie d l. who have been on separate sides of the chasm of war. Symbolism

as he ri gs together those

  

 

Hell: It is ironic that this is where Owen arrives when he escapes the war, thereby conveying his fears for the future of humanity Blood and water: Blood l.12,34 symbolises the agony and loss of life due to war and water the means of healing Guns symbolise the destructiveness of war Friendship and beauty stand for what Owen sees as the counterbalance to war with its hatefulness and ugliness Pity is a major theme but also symbolic of all that Owen seeks to write about in his poetry.

Themes Reconciliation The key theme of the poem is the need for reconciliation. Owen uses his poetry as a way of expressing his philosophy about the pity of war and ‘the truth untold’ (line twenty four). Owen introduces the idea of the greater love essential to wash the world clean with truth. Hunting wild after the wildest beauty in the world l.17 is another theme which Owen explores. His search for beauty and truth was inspired by his reading of Keats: Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all Ye know on earth and all ye need to know. This quotation from Ode to a Grecian Urn inspired a younger Wilfred Owen but was replaced in his later years by the philosophy and prophecy he puts into the mouth of the strange friend.

The future Owen foresees a post-war period with the world changed for the worse by war. He expresses his fear that: Men will go content with what we spoiled l.26 - that they will accept the shattered world as the norm. The alternative will be ‘discontent’ and further regression into ‘this retreating world’ - a frightening (and accurate) prediction of events.

The power of poetry In order to halt this course of events, Owen, through the strange friend, explores ways in which poetry and pity can restore the human spirit. The poet has the courage, mystery, wisdom and mastery to stop ‘the trek from progress’ l.28. When the flight can go no further and the nations retreat into ‘vain citadels’ l.33; when ‘much blood had clogged their chariot wheels’ l.34, the poet will ‘wash them from sweet wells’ and reveal ‘truths that lie too deep for taint’ l.36. In order to achieve this, Owen - the poet, the strange friend, the Christ figure - ‘would have poured my spirit without stint.’ l.37

“Futility” The sun is personified The key image is the sun. Owen personifies the sun in the first stanza as ‘kind’, a human characteristic given to an inanimate object whose warmth brings benefit The sun is also described as ‘old’. Whilst scientifically true, the adjective has human connotations when juxtaposed with ‘kind’, almost asking to be made into the phrase ‘kind old man’ or woman or person. Thus sun is a positive force and its action is all about bringing to life the soldier as it does the seeds. Words such as ‘Move him’, ‘gently’, ‘whispering’ and ‘rouse’ all suggest a soft, even motherly force that gently whispers rather than commands. In the final line the sun is said to know what is best for his/her children, reinforcing the image of a loving parent. In the second stanza the sun is associated with the whole act of creation and generation. Seen almost as a divine entity (countless cultures have believed in a sun god), the sun ‘wakes’ the planet and its seeds into life and vigor. But the sun cannot do what Owen desires, cannot bring the dead to life. And so he decries its ‘fatuous sunbeams’ l.13. It is as if the sun isn’t trying hard enough, is unfeeling and careless. Instead of symbolizing life, it comes to represent the meaninglessness of life. Other natural images Owen illustrates his poem with other images from nature. ‘The fields unsown’ l.3 represent the man’s potential, not yet fulfilled. The ‘seeds’ which the sun wakens represent life itself l.8. These seeds should have grown into corn to feed life - as the soldiers ought to become the men of the future. Owen uses the same metaphor in The Parable of the Old Man and the Young where: The old man slew his son And half the seed of Europe one by one l.13-14 The harsh coldness of ‘this snow’ l.5 can be read as a symbol of death, which came ‘this morning’, its whiteness perhaps echoing the pallor of the corpse. In the powerful line: ‘Was it for this the clay grew tall?’ l.12, Owen uses ‘clay’ as an impartial metaphor for the young man’s body. In the Bible, clay or earth is a symbol of God-given life but also of mortality. See Earth, clay, dust. As the well-known lines from the Anglican funeral service put it: we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; (These words build on verses about the brevity of human life also used within the burial service - see Psalms 103:13-16). In his anger Owen takes this image literally, reducing what had been a warm living body to what it has become: cold clay. Theme Owen is angry at the waste of life. His passionate response to the inability of the sun to rouse the soldier spills over into questioning the meaning of life itself. The fact that the sun, the giver of life and light, is incapable of bringing life back to what was once a warm, strong body makes Owen question its power. The waste of the limbs - with its obvious connection to the injuries inflicted by war – which are ‘so dear achieved’ l.10, seems pointless. So the paradox of life and death is also a theme. If we look at the image of the sun as an image of God, then we see in this poem the death of Owen’s beliefs.

Futility is an anti-war poem, powerfully evoking the pity of war with its anger and simultaneous tenderness to those who suffer. Language Plain language The plain language of the poem adds to the poignancy of the subject matter: the death of a soldier and the theme of futility. Although it is not explicit, there is something about Owen’s diction that suggests that the dead soldier may be a young boy. Perhaps it is the way the command to move him is juxtaposed with the gentle touch of the sun. We imagine the order being given in that way too. Maybe it is the idea of him growing tall, as if this had only recently happened, that he was just grown up, that suggests he is not much more than a boy. Positive diction The words of the first stanza are positive, some even upbeat, full of hope: • The ‘sun’ in line one is warm and life giving, waking the man to a new day. It is personified as ‘kind’ and, by implication, wise l.6-7 • The adverb ‘gently’ of line two qualifies the ‘touch’ which ‘at home’ wakes him ‘whispering’ of ‘half sown fields’ and reinforcing the gentle kindness already established. • Owen’s use of ‘always’ in line four creates a comfortable sense of continuity and safety ‘even’ he tells us ‘in France’. • Hope is raised by the use of the word ‘rouse’ in line six. Owen is hoping the sun will be able to wake him. The use of the word ‘rouse’ is interesting because The Rouse is a bugle call used in the war and still to be heard at Remembrance Day ceremonies. On the Western front it would follow the call for Reveille which was the wake-up call. The Rouse was then used to get the men out of bed. Negative diction In stanza two the diction changes after the initial line to be far more negative: • Moving from the idea of seeds in the earth, Owen uses the term ‘clays’ in line 8, a soil that is heavy, lumpen and hard to cultivate, as well as reminiscent of the sticky mud that characterised so many of the WWI battlefields • He refers to the earth in its earliest state of creation (according to the traditional biblical account in Genesis 1:9-10) as land that has not yet felt the light of the sun (Genesis 1:16) and is therefore ‘cold’ • Referring to the world as a ‘star’, rather than as the planet it is, also adds to the feeling of distance and cool remoteness, of the lack of life. This is compounded by the description of the man’s limbs being in death ‘too hard to stir’ l.11 (a pararhyme of star) •

Owen repeats ‘clay’ in line 12, this time in its biblical sense that God made man out of clay:

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7)

Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. (Isaiah 64:8). yet all this creative activity is framed within a rhetorical question which highlights the pointlessness of the soldier’s fate • Owen’s final angry barb condemns the sun itself as ‘fatuous’ l.13, a word not dissimilar to the ‘futility’ of the poem’s title, as both mean useless / pointless. Each term has a soft ‘f’ followed by a hard ‘t’, allowing Owen’s anger to be almost spat out. Sense of place Owen’s language in stanza one creates a strong sense of place in a few simple words. In the opening line we are immediately involved in the placing of the man’s body. He is moved ‘into the sun’ l.1, a place of life and light. At ‘home’ l.3 it woke him. Owen may be suggesting that he was a plough-man or plough-boy since the sun whispered of half-sown fields’ l.3, waking him and reminding that there was a job to be completed. The contrast with home is made by the phrase ‘even in France’ l.4. Owen is making a subtle comment about the difference between the rural England of the soldier’s home and the northern France (the Western front), where he really would rather not be. Tone Hopeful and optimistic The opening of this poem is hopeful, optimistic even. This positive mood carries through to the last lines of the first stanza: If anything can rouse him The kind old sun will know This hope spills over into the first line of the second stanza: ‘think how it wakes the seeds-’; but the dash brings with it a change of tone. Anger and despair The sun which brings warmth and the promise of new life is now perceived as insufficient and helpless in the face of the destruction of humanity facing the speaker. Owen asks three angry rhetorical questions which also serve to emphasise the significance of individual human life. The young man’s body had been ‘tall’, ‘full-nerved’ and ‘warm’, a growth and development which had been costly but worth it (‘dearachieved’ l.10). Yet this precious life has been wasted, not even in battle but by being left with insufficient protection from the cold. By the end of the poem, Owen’s tone reflects the title and the reader can only agree....