Disabled Notes

Features
Background
 “Mud, blood and sucked sugar stick.” H.B Yeats, a famous Irish poet, said
that Owen’s poetry boiled down to these 3 features. Mud, being a
metaphor for the depiction of the battlefield, on which mud was
omnipresent, blood being a metaphor for the violence and horror of the
battlefield, and sucked sugar stick being a representation of alliteration.
Rings true for this poem, Disabled, by Wilfred Owen
 Written 1917 in Craiglockhart, published 1920
 Robert Graves criticised him for the irregularity of his line lengths and for
daring to break with the poetic tradition which demanded a regular
pattern. Graves told Owen that, despite Disabled being a ‘damn fine poem’,
he must follow the rules.
 Published posthumously, people who lost family and friends in the war
read it, but it drew criticism from others who said the poems failed to
discuss other aspects of war like camaraderie and acts of bravery.
 There were millions of soldiers who returned from fighting in the plains
of mainland Europe with severe physically disabilities
 Discusses a man who lost his limbs fighting in the war. Despite his
sacrifices for his country, few honour his actions.
Structure
 The irregular rhyme scheme was used to represent the jolting walk of a
disabled man and to reflect how disrupted the man’s life has become
Purpose
 Depict the horrifying physical effects of war on soldiers

Literary Devices
 Predominantly juxtaposition, alliteration and metaphors
Themes
 Loss of youth and masculinity
 Horrors of War

Tone
 Morose and depressed, due to the inclusion of words with highly negative
implications, such as dark and grey.
 When the flashbacks are depicted however, the tone becomes nostalgic,
due to the juxtaposition in imagery between the recounts and the
soldier’s current situation

Audience
 General public, to instill anti war feelings in them
 This is shown through the use of Owens poetry in the 1960s in anti war
movements in the USA
Thesis Statements
1. How does Owen evoke a stark contrast between how the life of the
man before he went to war and after he returned
 2. How women are shown to idealise the image of the soldier, as seen in
propaganda
3. How does Owen show the brutality of how the man lost his limbs?

LINE BY LINE ANALYSIS

He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,

 “he,” – diction: the use of he, rather than a specific name, creates the idea
that the man is one of many due to the fact that the word could refer to
any male individual who had fought in the water. Expresses how this
suffering was universal amongst soldiers
 “sat…waiting,” – diction: these words denote passive actions that are not
physically active in any sense, juxtaposing the word football in line 23,
which denotes a type physical activity. This draws a stark contrast
between the past of the man and his present situation
 “waiting for dark,” – metaphor: for death, since the implied literal
expression of darkness of the night could be interpreted as the darkness
of death, thereby explaining how the soldier is waiting for death, and this
is how he occupies his life. Hence, the meaninglessness of the man’s life is
made pellucid
 It is further emphasised by the use of words with dull connotations, (grey
and dark)

And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,

 “ghastly suit of grey,” –allusion: to the scrubs the soldier was meant to
wear while in the hospital. The image is transformed with the use of
“ghastly,” into one of a ghost, as ghastly describes a face that is extremely
pale and white. This is a feature that was commonly thought to be present
in ghosts, and contributes to this image of a ghost, a transient being that
is neither here nor there, expressing the lack of purpose in the man’s life,
instilling feelings of pity in the audience.

Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park

 “legless,” –diction: blunt imagery that shows how the man has lost both
his legs
  “sewn short at elbow,” – euphemism: “sewn short,” means to have
reduced the length of something, this was done in the man’s case to
accommodate for his shorter arms as a result of his forearm amputations,
unveiling him as a quadriplegic.

Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,

Voices of play and pleasure after day,
 “boys,” – diction that is expressive of how young the soldiers truly are.
 “saddening like a hymn,” – simile: expressing how these voices induce
melancholy in the man as a hymn would. A hymn, a song sung by choirs
on churches, is used in the context of depression because of the Church’s
preaching of prowar propaganda, hence sending men off to their deaths.
This sadness is used to illustrate how the man’s life is composed of
nothing but it, as asserted by the anaphora of “Voices.”
Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.

About this time Town used to swing so gay

When glow-lamps budded in the light-blue trees, 
 “light-blue trees,” diction: the colour blue was used as a symbol for youth,
and is of course known as being a bright colour. This is juxtaposed to the
first stanza, in which dark colours are ubiquitous. Therefore, the contrast
in colours is used to show how the man has lost a large amount of his
youth on the battlefield, propagating feelings of sympathy for soldiers in
the audience.

And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,—

 “girls glanced lovelier,” – diction and alliteration: “lovelier,” is an adverb
that describes how the women looked at the soldier in a charming
manner, as one would when gazing at an attractive member of the
opposite sex. This alludes to the fact that the man was very good looking
and therefore was appealing to women, sexually.

In the old times, before he threw away his knees.

Now he will never feel again how slim
Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands,
 Unlike any other ending word in the poem, there is no counter rhyme for
hands elsewhere, paralleling how the soldier will truly never be able to
have physical contact with women, heightening the juxtaposition between
his life before and after his stint on the battlefield.
All of them touch him like some queer disease.
 “Now”…”touch him like some queer disease,” – “Now,” pulls the readers
back to the present, and explains how the man is treated through the use
of the simile, “touch him like some queer disease.” The soldier is
compared to a disease, an entity one would avoid due to fear of it
spreading, in this image. This is juxtaposed to the earlier line, “girls
glanced lovelier,” in order to reveal the soldier’s feelings of regret
regarding his participation in the war, instilling anti war feelings in the
public.
 If we look back at the inclusion of women in this poem, it can be seen that
Owen did this in order to shun their reinforcement of propaganda. This is
because most women would encourage the men in their lives to go to war,
whether they be brothers, husbands or boyfriends.

There was an artist silly for his face,

For it was younger than his youth, last year.

Now, he is old; his back will never brace;

He's lost his colour very far from here,

Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry,

And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race 

 “hot race,” – euphemism for war: because a race connotes something of
gamelike nature, just like how Jesse Pope depicted war, this parallel
mocks how she presents war in her jingoistic anthology

And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.

 l alliteration creates the sudden flow of blood, adding to the mental
images of wounds created in the readers’ minds
 The last 3 lines can be considered as a metaphor for the brutal
amputation of the man’s limbs.
 o To leap is to move quickly, this verb therefore acts as a metaphor
for how blood would start pouring from the stump of an
amputated limb at astonishing speed
o “Veins ran dry,” –imagery: Veins are blood vessels that transport
deoxygenated blood from organs to the heart (inner biologist
demanded that I use that phrase), for them to be dry, they would
have a lack of fluid, in this case blood. This lack of blood would be
induced by multiple amputations, graphically depicting how the
man has lost his arms and legs, resulting in him becoming a
quadriplegic because of the war.
o “purple,” – metaphor for blood: as he would be bleeding during an
amputation. However, purple is used because it is a mixture of red
and blue. Blue is a symbol for youth and red is a symbol for love
and infatuation, essentially one’s drive or motivation. Hence,
through the war, the man lost his youth as well as his drive to live,
causing the readers to feel immense pity for the man.
o Overall the lines successfully depict the horror of an amputation on
the battlefield and reveal to the general public the horror of war
distilled, instilling strong anti war sentiments in the British
population.

One time he liked a blood-smear down his leg,

After the matches carried shoulder-high.
It was after football, when he'd drunk a peg,
He thought he'd better join. He wonders why.
Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts.
That's why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg,

Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts,

 “giddy jilts,” –metaphor for women: “giddy,” meaning excitable and jilt
referring to a capricious woman, this is used to portray how women
would change their views on men suddenly. Women idealised the idea of
the soldier shown in propaganda, masculine and handsome, hence they
were drawn to the man before he went off to war. However, when he
returned, he no longer fit this image, as he returned a quadriplegic and
 not the “whole,” man that propaganda depicted, the women treated him
completely differently, as a sickness (“disease”), not a man.

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

Smiling they wrote his lie: aged nineteen years.
Germans he scarcely thought of, all their guilt,
And Austria's, did not move him. And no fears
Of Fear came yet. He thought of jewelled hilts
For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;
And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;
Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.
And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.

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

Only a solemn man who brought him fruits
Thanked him; and then inquired about his soul.

Now, he will spend a few sick years in institutes,

And do what things the rules consider wise,
And take whatever pity they may dole.
Tonight he noticed how the women's eyes
Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.
How cold and late it is! Why don't they come
And put him into bed? Why don't they come?