Disabled

Disabled 

Wilfred Owen 

What can I say? You surely know the deal, Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) was a young English man who also lived in France, where he taught English, and sejourned in a Scotland, in a military hospital alongside fellow war poet Siegfried Sassoon. Owen died at the close of WW1, leaving behind him poetry that is worth reading.

Indeed, in the spring of 1918, Owen's published a short collection of poems. The preface to that collection reads:  this book is not about heroes. My subject is war and the pity of war; the poetry is in the pity.

Disabled

Use your textbook (p41-44) as the information is excellent. Also, visit: http://www.wilfredowen.fr/english/

That said, a good starting point for today is to realise that although the poem clearly starts with a speaker who is looking at the disabled man, "he sat in a wheeled chair,"  we slide very quickly into the mind and memories of that said man, as he remembers how it was to feel young and ever-so alive.

The poem is interwoven with the images of evening and dusk: the idea of sleep "gathering" and "mothering" people away, the "air [growing] dim," the "glow-lamps [that] budded in the light-blue trees," "tonight," "how cold and late it is!", be[ing] put to bed," and waiting for someone to come, "why don't they come?".

Sadly, then, we realise the images of evening are metaphorical for they symbolise the idea that although "his youth" was "last year", he is at the end of his life: now, he is old. Although death might seem welcome for a man who has lost all his limbs, the speaker admits with regret that "Now, he will spend a few sick years in institutes, and do what the rules consider wise/ And take whatever pity they may dole." There is a clear sense of desperation, and even confusion that Death (symbolised by the nurses who are late in coming the night of the poem) is coming for him sooner: why don't they come / and put him to bed? Why don't they come.

He clearly regrets his choice to join the war:

"In the old times, before he threw away his knees" (line10),

He "poured [his colour/his blood] down shell-holes till the veins ran dry" (line 18)

He wonders why - he thought he'd better join (line 24) - I've reversed sentence order.

Note, he signed up when he was drunk and "to please his Meg."

He wanted "the smart salutes," "arms" (weapons), "leave" (holidays), "pay", "drums and cheers". He did not think of Germany, Austria nor of fear, for "no fears/ Of Fear came yet" (line 32).

He recognises the importance of how he was welcomed home: (lines 37-39): 

Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.

Only a solemn man who brought him fruits

Thanked him: and then enquired about his soul.

This one man touched upon the truth of (inadequate) life. In the man's state, what else does he have but his soul?

That's a good question, because in many ways the poem seems to be an exploration of the state of the disabled man's soul.

"In the old days" (last year)

He danced with girls, held their "slim" waists, their "subtle hands"

He was painted by an "artist silly for his face" - eager to paint his face - for he looked so young.

He played football, when "after the matches" he was celebrated and so "carried shoulder-high" and able to get drunk, "drink a peg."

He'd wanted to believe, "as someone had said," that he would look "like a god in a kilt" (line 25) with "jewelled hilts", "daggers in plaided socks" (lines 32-33)

Remember, 

"He asked to join. He didn't have to beg.

Smiling they wrote his lie: aged nineteen years." (lines 27-28).

What a waste! For "tonight he noticed how the women's eyes/ Passed from him to the strong men that were whole" (liness 43-44).

And so it is that this poem is made up of coupled moments of comparison, 

youth versus old age, that "esprit de corps" (team spirit; feeling of pride) versus loneliness and regret; being carried "shoulder-high" and being in a wheel-chair, without limbs, dancing versus sitting, just sitting, in the same town at the same time of night; and, so on.

The most poignant of comparisons, for me (at least), is the memory of the "purple [which] spurted from his thigh" (line 20) when he was injured and the "blood-smear down his leg, after the matches" that "one time he liked" (line 21). In the comparison, we realise the disabled man went to war to re-experience/re-live that moment of man-ish pride. Now he no longer has legs upon which he can feel such smears of blood. Worse, the blood that "spurted" was purple, not red: unreal, monsterous, unmanly.

How can we close? I guess by thanking Wilfred Owen for leaving us with his own honest understanding of the worth of war for the individuals who dreamt of glory and found... death and destruction.