Disabled Amalaya's commentary

Disabled’ by Wilfred Owen is written in the winter of 1917 during World War I. Owen wrote this poem while he was recovering from shell shock from the war in Craiglockhart Hospital. In the poem, Owen uses a number of literary devices to bring out the story of a teenage boy who walked into the war without paying attention to its cruelty, and came out of the war disabled, as the title suggests; physically and emotionally.

The poet begins by creating an atmosphere of sorrow and hopelessness by mentioning that the protagonist of the poem was sitting in a wheeled chair, ‘waiting for dark’; the first line itself shows the reader how the boy was ‘legless’, and he was waiting for the dark because he was probably conscious of his body, and wanted the blackness of the night to hide it from the world. The words ‘shivered’ and ‘ghastly’ make the diction very strong and impactful, as it adds an eerie effect to the poem, and the boy’s state. The phrase ‘voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn’ is auditory imagery, and it reminds the reader of a faint, distant, sorrowful sound; Owen is trying to show the reader how the voices of the boys at war were still echoing in the boy’s head, like a saddening ‘hymn’. This emphasizes on the sorrowful mood of the stanza. The phrase ‘voices of play’ is also auditory imagery, and hints towards the boy hearing other, happy boys playing with ‘pleasure’ down stairs, unlike him, who was miserable. In the last line of this stanza, sleep is compared to a mother, who would take away, or ‘gather’ the happy voices of the boys downstairs from him; through this, Owen shows how sleep is an escape from his misery for the boy.

The mood then shifts from a sorrowful, hopeless one to a bright, happy mood in the beginning of stanza two; Owen begins to describe how the town generally looks at the time, and uses the word ‘gay’ to describe it. The use of diction here suggests how the town was happy, and bright at the time. The sibilance of the letter ‘s’ in the phrase ‘swing so gay’ adds a very smooth effect to the sentence, showing how unlike the boy, the time of the town was moving smoothly and happily. The alliteration of the letter ‘l’ in the phrases ‘glow-lamps budded in the light blue trees’ and ‘girls glanced lovelier’ adds a tinkling effect to the stanza, showing how everything in the town was sparkling and glittering.  However, the mood changes back to one of sorrow and sadness in the forth line; Owen marks the change by the phrase ‘in the old times, before he threw away his knees.’ This shows how the boy was nostalgic, and missing the way the town was before he lost his knees. The diction here is very strong; the words ‘threw away’ are extremely harsh, and show the reader how the boy was in fact, blaming himself for the loss of his knees since he ‘threw them’ away. Owen continues this mood of regret and guilt with the use of tactile imagery; he mentions that the boy would never be able to feel ‘slim girls’ waists’, or their ‘warm subtle hands.’ The words ‘slim’ and ‘subtle’ are extremely delicate, making the reader realize how much the boy was going to miss out on. He then uses disturbing visual tactile imagery by saying that the girls would ‘touch him like a queer disease’; this makes the reader empathize with the boy. This is also ironic, since sleep, which is a non-living thing was comforting to him like a ‘mother’, whereas girls, which are human beings and should actually be the comfort would see him like a ‘disease’; this shows how he was completely isolated from human beings, depending on sleep to nurture him.

Owen then makes a time shift in the poem, by referring to a year ago; he speaks about an artist who was ‘silly for his face’ the last year, when he was ‘younger than his youth’; the phrase ‘younger than his youth’ brings out his age; he was just a teenage boy when he joint the war. When he comes back to current time, he uses the phrase ‘now he is old’ to describe how he was. The fact that Owen called him ‘young’ a year ago, and ‘old’ now shows how he was marking the boy’s youth by just the war; the war had had such a large impact on him that he had lost his entire youth. Owen then uses strong, disturbing visual imagery; he mentions that the boy had ‘lost his color’ and ‘poured it down shell-holes’. The phrase ‘lost his color’ is very strong diction, and gives the reader the idea of the boy literally draining out all the color there was in him. Over here, color is symbolic of his youth and his happiness, and the ‘shell-holes’ hint towards the trenches, where he lost his knees. ‘Veins ran dry’ is further visual imagery, making the mood of the stanza extremely disturbing and full of horror. The phrase ‘leap of purple spurted’ from his thigh is strong diction, and makes the reader picture the terrifying image of blood gushing out of the boy’s thigh.

Owen once again makes a time shift in the next stanza; by taking the reader to one of his football matches during his youth, before he joint the war. The idea of blood is carried on to this stanza, but in a far less gruesome manner. Owen mentions that he in fact ‘liked a blood smear’ down his leg during his football matches, since it was not a big deal. The entire mood in this stanza is innocence and jovialness, since it describes his reasons for joining the army. It is revealed that the boy only joint the army because of trivial, immature reasons such as looking like a ‘god in kilts’, which was the uniform, or to ‘please his Meg’, his girlfriend, since joining the army represented your manhood and your bravery. The diction in this stanza shows how at the time, the army didn’t care if you were under age; they were talking anybody and everybody as they were in desperate need of men. This phrase ‘smiling they wrote his lie’ shows how the knee he was underage but he didn’t have to ‘beg’ because they didn’t care. Through this example, Owen reveals how the army was at the time, and how not just the boy mentioned in the boy, but a huge number of teenage, immature boys probably lost their youth in the war simply because they joint the army for trivial reasons.

Stanza 5 is a continuation of stanza four, speaking about when the boy joint the army; Owen mentions that he wasn’t even thinking about Germany, and Austria ‘did not move him’, furthering on the idea of how he only joint the army for petty reasons. This stanza is full of positive visual imagery, as it describes the things the boy did think of while joining the army; it is mentioned that he thought of ‘jeweled hills’, ‘smart salutes’ and pay arrears’. The use of diction in the phrase ‘no fears Of Fear came yet’ is very significant, as well as ironic, since the boy was not even scared of anything when he joint the army. The mention of ‘drums and cheers’ is happy auditory imagery and brings out irony again, since leaving for war here is portrayed as exciting, and something to cheer for, when it eventually took away his youth from him.

This auditory imagery of cheers is carried on to the next stanza, which then shifts time to when he returned back from the army; the fact that although he did get cheers, it wasn’t like how ‘crowds cheer Goal’ shows how he wasn’t even satisfied with his service at the army, since he wasn’t respected, or cheered for like he would be when he scored a goal in a football match, taking the reader back to stanza 3. The use of the word ‘Goal’ shows how he was aiming for something, and didn’t even achieve what he was aiming for. This creates a mood of regret and guilt.

This mood is carried on to the last stanza, where Owen brings the reader back to present time; he mentions that he will spend ‘a few sick years in institutes’, bringing out how helpless he was. This helplessness becomes the theme of the last stanza, as Owen speaks about how he was at mercy of the people in charge of the institute, as he would do whatever they considered ‘wise.’ He then brings out sorrow through visual imagery, by speaking about how a woman just looked away from him, and set her eye upon ‘strong men.’ The use of diction here is very significant, because the word ‘strong’ brings out how he didn’t consider himself strong anymore, which is ironic, since he left for the war in the hope of gaining manhood and attaining the title of having strength and bravery. The poem ends in isolation and ‘coldness’, where Owen asks the question, ‘Why don’t they come and put him to bed?’ Sleep is brought back in this stanza, and is once again shown as the comfort he was using to escape the world. Sleep here, or going ‘to bed’ could also be symbolic of death. The question ‘Why don’t they come?’ shows how he was completely dependent on the people if the institute and so there was a possibility that he wanted to give his life up, and go ‘to bed’ permanently. The poem ends with this sad, sorrowful mood.

In conclusion, Owen has used literary devices such as time shifts, symbolism, comparisons and imagery in extremely significant ways, in order to bring out a boy’s innocent and jovialness while making the decision to go to war, and to show how the war had the ability to completely scar someone and snatch their youth away from them, exactly like the boy in the poem.