How does Wilfred Owens poetry provoke a reader to consider ideas about telling the truth?

Wilfred Owen’s poetry ‘The Next War’ and ‘Insensibility’ provoke readers to consider ideas about
telling the truth. These ideas include a countering of the propaganda around war so as to reveal
truths about the suffering of the fighting men.
Insensibility, explores the truth about war by highlighting the psychological suffering of the
soldiers, contradicting the propaganda used to project the heroism of fighting in war. Owen envies
those who are so emotionally numbed by war, that the blood in their veins has metaphorically run
cold, “Happy are men who yet before they are killed Can let their veins run cold.” leaving them
unable to feel any fear in the face of their imminent death. This is reinforced with another
metaphor “makes their feet/Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers” where Owen compares
a field of dead soldiers to an alley cobbled with the bones of the dead, to emphasise how not even
this horror could provoke a response, or make ‘sore’ these soldiers. The running theme of the
allusion ’Happy are men...Happy are these...’ alludes to William Wordsworth’s poem “The Happy
Warrior’ in order to contradict its view that ‘every man in arms would wish to be...the happy
warrior’. Owen mocks this idea and propaganda by asserting and proving that happiness in any real
sense, is not possible in war.
Similarly within “The Next War”, Owen expands on the truth of war by expressing how
happiness does not exist in war, confirming the truth behind the propaganda. Owen exposes the
soldiers lack of emotions by personifying death as a comrade in war “Out there, we've walked quite
friendly up to Death,- Sat down an eaten with him, cool and bland,- Pardoned his spilling mess-tins
in our hand.” The effect is to strip death of his power and ability to intimidate by making him so
ordinary. Although the ‘spilling’ of ‘mess-tins’ suggests an explosion, the visual imagery and
ironically ‘friendly ‘ banter highlights that the soldiers are unafraid of death. Owen also uses a
comma within the opening words “Out there,” to describe an other-worldly place, separating the
arena of war from normal life. Owen’s intention is to highlight how in reality death is so
commonplace that it is ironically welcomed rather than feared, further exposing the absence of truth
behind the propaganda.
“Insensibility” further highlights the absence of truth behind the propaganda by asserting
how death was so common place, that it had psychologically scared the soldiers. Within ‘Can laugh
among the dying, unconcerned.’ Owen juxtaposes the incongruent images of soldiers laughing as
others die around them. He reinforces this by prefacing the word ‘unconcerned’ with a comma, and
concluding it with a full stop. The punctuation mirror the way in which the soldiers protect
themselves from all feeling by erecting this barrier of disinterest to the suffering that they witness.
The emotional unresponsiveness is further emphasised in “By choice they made themselves
immune/ To pity and whatever mourns in man/“ Owen uses a recurring ‘m’ sound through
alliteration so as to echo the moaning sound of the dying soldiers. By allowing the audience to hear
‘whatever mourns in man’, he reinforces the callousness of the ‘dullards’ who ‘by choice’ are
immune to such suffering.
‘The Next War’ further reveals the soldiers immunity to such suffering and how this lack of
feeling shows the real truth of war imparting on their sensitivity. The persona’s exclamation carries
a tone of shock within “Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!” , mirroring the surprise of readers
viewing death as an enemy to be feared and conquered.“We laughed at him, we leagued with him,
old chum.” Ironically display that the soldiers celebrate death as a colloquial ‘chum’, because as the
verbs “laughed… leagued" show, they must partner with death in order to kill the enemy. This
effect highlights the truth of what war really was like and reveals the extent of their psychological
suffering whereby they have the ability to accept death now.
Also in ‘Insensibility’, Owen also presents graphic images of suffering in war to
provoke the reader to consider ideas about telling the truth. This is evident in ‘Having seen all
things red,/ Their eyes are rid/ Of the hurt of the colour of blood forever.’ The colour imagery of
‘red’, echoed in the visual imagery of ‘the colour of blood’ points to the soldiers’ prolonged
exposure to death and violence. Owen highlights that this exposure numbs the soldiers, to the extent
that they will ‘forever’ be unmoved by death in war, a fact reinforced by the placement of this
word at the end of the sentence, allowing it to echo into the endless future. Further supporting the
prolonged exposure to death ‘Their hearts remain small-drawn’ Owen metaphorically compares the
soldiers’ hearts to something that is almost foetal like in its retreat from the horror of war. His
purpose is to emphasise the true nature of war whereby the concealed truth was exposed through
terror to the soldiers.
“The Next War” further demonstrates the true nature of war by emphasising the soldiers
emotional unresponsiveness due to their long endured suffering. Owen sustains the personification
of death ‘We've sniffed the green thick odour of his breath,- Our eyes wept, but our courage didn't
writhe.’ to offer a less terrifying representation of a gas attack, reducing its power to little more than
the unpleasant breath. The olfactory imagery nevertheless captures the impact of such attacks
wherein the eyes burn and water in response. Owen then personifies the courage of the soldiers in
order to emphasise again their resilience and resistance to death itself. This only allows themselves
to experience the physical pain but not the emotional pain, exposing that the propaganda had
shielded the truth about war but now know that depriving oneself of emotions makes it easier to
survive in such a nature.
Owen exposes the graphic truth of war by contradicting the propaganda throughout “The
Next War” and “Insensibility” He does this by focusing on the psychological suffering of the
soldiers which provokes the readers to consider ideas about telling the truth.