"Futility" Poem Explanation - Wilfred Owen
In this article we shall read about 'Wilfred Owen' and his poem Futility things about "Futility" poem by Wilfred Owen.
About Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) enlisted in the Artist's Rifles despite bad health, in October 1915. During the First World War he met the poet Siegfried Sassoon who influenced him greatly and encouraged him to write directly about the subject of war. Owen was killed in action on 4 November 1918 just a week before the war ended.
Owen's early poetry shows the influence of Keatsian romanticism. But the poetry that has distinguished him as a war-poet was the result of his real life experiences in the trenches and on combat duty. His mentor, Sassoon, had no illusions about war and wrote powerful satirical poems against it.
Owen's poetry is also a protest against the savagery of war. He is bitterly satirical and speaks directly to his readers. 'Futility' focuses upon the bitterness and anguish felt at the untimely death of a young soldier. The young boy's death poses before humanity at large a question regarding the significance and worth of human life.
Owen himself wrote, 'Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the Pity'.
"Futility" Poem
Move him into the sun-
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown. Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds,-
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved-still warm-too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
- O what made fatuous sunbeams
toil To break earth's sleep at all?
Glossary
Title. Futility uselessness
Line 2. gently softly
Line 2. its the sun's
Line 9. clays earthdust from which man is made.
Line 9. cold star the earth that was initially cold and uninhabitable made warm later by the sun.
Line 11. stir persuade to move; sign of life
Line 13. fatuous very silly without seeming to know it.
Explanatory Notes
'Futility' is a short and intensely moving poem about a young boy, earlier a farmer, now killed in action. The boy symbolises all the soldiers who are unnecessarily killed in war. The tone of the poem which is initially ironic rises to the heightening of the tragic and leaves the readers with a feeling of helplessness and futility.
The dead soldier can be revived only if the sun decides to rejuvenate him. Once, in the past, the sun woke the dead clay of this earth by its warm touch. The warmth then transformed the dead planet into one teeming with life. Before the war, this soldier who worked in the fields as a farmer was assisted by the sun waking him and doing his work in the fields. The sun helped him in creative work. Now as a soldier he has been a symbol of the negation of life and one is uncertain whether the sun could have any life-giving influence on the lethal machine-the soldier. The sun recognises and supports kindness and life, not cruelty and death.
The poet laments the loss of the full grown, able-bodied young soldier. He grieves over the uselessness of the sun's efforts to bring to life this once cold and lifeless earth. The question he raises at the end is both ironical and tragic, 'if this was the end result of creation why did the sun, who certainly must have known how man would misuse the earth, foolishly strive to bring it to life?' Note the direct speech used by the speaker which informs the poetic experience with a sense of immediacy. The poem clearly states Owen's ironic distrust in all 'the traditional ideologies' which have kept soldiers fighting on the battlefield.
Conclusion
"Futility" by Wilfred Owen is a poem on themes of war’s senselessness. So you can learn many things from this poem. You can read this poem if you are doing your Graduation in India.
So hope you find many thing in this article about Futility Poem by Wilfred Owen, please comment your view down.
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