Wilfred Owen composed the poem ‘Mental Cases’ in 1918 at the Craig
Lockhart hospital where he had been admitted after being diagnosed with
shellshock. This powerful poem with vivid imagery describes the horrors of war.
By describing the physical damage of war, he highlights its mental impact it
has on the soldiers. Owen’s aim is to shock the readers by illustrating the
ghastly physical symptoms of mental agony.
The
tone throughout the poem is really forbidding and hostile. The mood is tense
and depressing as the reality of war is brought to light. Owen uses a variety
of literary devices including alliterations, metaphors, similes,
personifications, imagery, onomatopoeia, anaphoras and sibilance. There is no
particular rhyme scheme used in this poem, perhaps to show torment the
distortion that it is accompanied by. All the breaks, enjambments, and
semicolons too serve the same purpose. They create jerking effects and prevent
a smooth continuity in the poem. The caesuras break the pace and make the reader
pause and actually reflect on his questions and statements, allowing him to
gain a sense of the fear, confusion and anguish of being at war. There are a
few incomplete sentences too such as “but who these hellish?”, which create a
feeling of something being wrong or missing, just like the madness of war.
The first stanza
includes several rhetorical questions, an interrogatory tone, which show the reader Owen’s state of being in
shellshock- disturbed, lost and confused. “Who are these? Why sit they here in
twilight? Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows.” This interrogation seems
rather vague since it does not address a specific person, nor does it mention whom
it is asking about. He refers to them as “they”, in third person, which
suggests otherness. He doesn’t refer to them as “people”, making it appear as
though they are some unfamiliar creatures, but simply writes of their body
parts. The word “twilight” triggers a sense of being in an in between stage. Just
like twilight is in the midst of day and night, these (people) who he speaks of
have paused in the phase between life and death, neither dead, nor alive. Purgatory
is a place
or state of suffering inhabited by the souls of sinners who are expiating their
sins before going to heaven[1].
Using this biblical allusion, Owen carries on the idea of being in a middle
stage. As it serves as imagery of suffering and relentlessly waiting to go to
hell, the reader wonders what sins “they” are being punished for. Thus, by
using physical examples, such as purgatory and twilight, he shows the mental
torment of existing in a phase between life and death.
The poet uses a
lot of graphic description to shed light on the physical impact of war, while
he continues to question. “Drooping
tongues from jaws that slob their relish, Baring teeth that leer like skulls'
teeth wicked?” This is very repulsive visual animalistic imagery. It is
dehumanizing and strips “them” bear of all virtues or even simple human
qualities. Owen is attempting to startle us, and shatter any positive that that
may exist regarding war. By comparing “their” teeth to those of an “wicked”
skull, he implies their sins- however, he still does not mention what they are.
“Stroke on stroke of pain, - but what slow panic,” is sibilance. Owen creates
the repletion of an “s” sound that is jarring to the reader, which makes him
pause and reflect on the occurrings of war. “Slow panic” is an oxymoron.
Although panic is a sudden uncontrollable anxiety and reminds one of a hasty
situation, the poet characterizes the panic caused by war to be slow. Perhaps
this is because it is a prolonged panic that is retained by “them” even after
they leave war. It emphasizes the slow suffering of “these”. “Gouged these
chasms round their fretted sockets?” A chasm refers to a deep fissure in the
earth. It is used as a hyperbole to describe their emptiness. Their sockets,
bereft of eyeballs hinder them from viewing their surrounding events and show
the emptiness in their faces. “Misery swelters” throughout every part of the
body including “their hair” and “hands’ palms”, a personification which reveals
how inescapable this suffering was. “Surely we have perished/ Sleeping, and
walk hell; but who these hellish?” This is the first time the poet uses the
word “we” and not “they”, he is starting to be implicate with them, and say
that he too is involved in this struggle. The word “perished” appears as though
the people died wile sleeping and at the moment walking through hell- but this
deception is destroyed when the reader realizes that even in their sleep, they
cannot escape to hell, being compelled to exist. The striking imagery revolts
the reader, enabling him to relate to the soldiers’ mental state.
The following
stanza seems to be the answers of the questions Owen poses in the first stanza.
“- These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished.” He finally states who
“they” are by describing them as men whose minds have been forcefully snatched
by “the Dead”. This term has been capitalized to illustrate a personification-
since the Dead is what actually caused the degradation of these men’s minds. Their
minds have been gorged down by watching the tortures of war and death. The
words “men”, “minds”, memory”, “murders”
“multitudinous murders” present in the first three lines of this stanza serve
as an alliteration. It has the ability of instantly catch the reader’s
attention as it emits the humming of the men in agony. The repetition of the
word “murder” is an anaphora, which stresses on the magnitude of the crime that
has been committed. “Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,/Treading
blood from lungs that had loved laughter.” Owen reiterates the impotency of the
soldiers to be freed from their situation. He condemns the war scene to such an
extent that he doesn’t even refer to the soldiers as people, but mere masses of
flesh wandering about. He even makes a comparison of their previous way of
living to their present ones to show the dehumanizing nature of war. The alliteration
of the letter “L” produces a more happy and light sound, juxtaposed to the
other alliterations in the poem. While their lungs were formerly used for
laughter, they now “tread blood” or choke because of the intoxicating gases
released from the war ammunition. Even the slightest image of joy in this poem
has been completely wrecked. “Batter of guns” and “shatter of guns” are
onomatopoeias that serve as an internal rhyme. It adds a certain flow to the
poem that is deliberately lacking throughout due to the irregular pattern of
the rhyme scheme. It is ironic that these pounding sounds are used as smoothly
flowing in the sentence. Perhaps, it is because these sounds are familiar to
him and no longer bother him as much as the silence. Again, the poet refers to
the soldiers as “flying muscles”, a body part, instead of people. “Carnage”, or
slaughter and “squander”, misuse/waste, are emotive words emotive words that
show us the horrors of war. “Rucked too thick for these men's extrication,”
suggests that this issue is so deep that the soldiers can’t be relieved from
this constraint or difficulty. Their mental and physical anguish will continue
to prevail because the situation is so severe, that it has now become
inevitable.
The last stanza
acts as the effects of the answers Owen provided us with in the previous
stanza, thus he begins it with the word “therefore”. “Their eyeballs shrink
tormented/ Back into their brains, because on their sense/ Sunlight seems a
blood-smear; night comes blood-black;/ Dawn breaks open like a wound that
bleeds afresh.” They’re eyeballs have been blurred from reality, by shrinking
into their brains. All they can see is the agony and torture within themselves,
in their minds. He uses the most gory imagery in this line which is accentuated
with the “b” sound of the alliteration. The sound created is almost like blood
sputtering in their heads. They can’t erase the sound of people coughing and
regurgitating blood from their heads. This is quite morbid and disturbing for
the reader, causing them to cringe with fear. The death image of “blood-black”
created is a metaphor for dawn, sunlight and night. Just like the cycle of the
day continuously repeats, so does this memory incessantly repeat in their
minds. “Hilarious, hideous,/ Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses.” This
oxymoron generates a very frightening image, that of a mad smile across their
faces. Watching carcasses smiling is rather eerie, especially after dying from
war, a place of complete torture. “- Thus their hands are plucking at each
other;/ Picking at the rope-knouts of their scourging;/ Snatching after us who
smote them, brother,/ Pawing us who dealt them war and madness.” These words
are very harsh and associate with battle, fighting and bloodshed. It’s almost
like it is a personification because the hands are doing everything and not the
people. He now introduces the word “us” which is a universal term in which he
addresses all, involving the reader. He induces his emotion within us by
addressing us with camaraderie so that we too feel the remorse since
eventually, we are all guilty, we all promoted this. He too takes
responsibility for the war and madness. Thus, the poet uses a variety of
literary devices to bring out the physical as well as mental impacts of war.
In conclusion,
Wilfred Owen successfully instigates his emotions towards war within the
audience. The harsh sounds produced by the alliterations, irregular sentences,
and comparisons, all aid in creating the image of the war atmosphere. He
describes the physical torture that the soldiers face and its mental impact it
has on them. He also states that war is inevitable, but this poem does indeed,
shows hope. By writing war poetry, Owen ‘s aim is to spread his emotions and
prevent people from being misled into war, for it is not what one expects. Thus,
by highlighting the negative impacts of war, the poet enables readers to paint
the real i
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