Alarm 1

Example:I knew you in this dark: for you frowned/Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed./I
parried;but my hands were loath and cold.
Technique:It is an ironic juxtaposition of darkness and insight, 'for so you frowned'.
Effect: This final section brings a change of tone with nothing high-flown but plain, mostly monosyllabic
language, the simplicity of fulfilment. It is reflective, almost gentle, understated feel of the denouement. The
defiling and hideous intimacy of inflicting death in war, has left them 'cold', enigmatically conveyed by the
final words and ellipsis.The hostility is eroded by the shared experience which is reinforced by the use of the
pronouns I and You.
Analyse: In reaction to the jabbing and killing the soldier had parried - a verb meaning to ward off a blow.
Owen states that the man was unable to defend himself. His hands were cold, an unequivocal word
indicating basic physical suffering. That the mans hands were also loath adds a more complex idea. Loath
suggests a reluctance to act. He is saying that the man was unwilling, as well as unable, to defend himself.
He seems to realize that the war was an absurd form of madness for which no individual can be blamed.
Conceptual understanding: To fight in a war and kill fellow human beings it is necessary to abandon the basic
morality of civilised life. The war has perverted human relationships, changing friends into enemies, smiles
into suffering. Friendship has been perverted by war.
Alarm 2
Example: With piteous recognition in fixed eyes, / Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
Technique: Simile
Effect: Setting, actions and emotions are easily visualised. Atmospheric tension is built up through emotive
verbs and adjectives such as bless and distressful. The comatose state suggests an almost purgatorial
netherworld between life and death. One springs up, his fixed eyes echoes the so-called 'Thousand yard
stare' of the mentally ill, a perception reinforced by reference to the figure's distressful hands lifted as if to
bless.
Analyse: It is possible to read this as a comparison, a simple simile describing 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 hands raised as if to bless are in fact raised in blessing.The two men had already
shared one terrible, intimate moment - the moment of killing. Now comes recognition. "Piteous" - not pitying
of course but calling for pity which explains why ambiguity attaches to why the distressful hands are lifted.
Conceptual understanding: Even hell is in fact a place of peace and reconciliation for soldiers, where dead
enemies become brothers in their loathing of war. Far from being at the beginning of an eternity of
everlasting torment, they are free from all pain and horror. The real hell is the war.