Drafted at Craiglockhart Ripon in late 1917 or early 1918.

Insensibility

CONTEXT

Drafted at Craiglockhart/ Ripon in late 1917 or early 1918.

SUMMARY

The poem distinguishes between the necessary insensitivity of men who have to survive in war conditions, and the unawakened insensibility of people who have never been confronted with the hard facts of what war is really like.Owen recognises and gives full value to the toughness of the soldier who has learnt to become insensitive to withstand the horrors of war, while also taking pity at this. In this respect, the poem is thus ambivalent and rather complex.Owen uses structure to make the poem ironic as a subversion Has irregular metre, unequal stanzaic length and any rhythm present is broken by para- rhymes. There is no melody to it and he calls it tuneless tendencies. Such a style of writing shows Owen’s deliberate attempt to create irony and subversion of romantic ideals of war.Numbering the stanzas and the structure makes the poem resemble a Pindaric Ode which is usually of an elegiac quality.

CONTENT (1)

“Happy are men who yet before they are killed” Repetition of “Happy are ….” – allusion to Biblical Beattitutes or a response to William Wordsworth’s “Character of the Happy Warrior”. Also shows how the Romantic poets have influenced Owen.However, its usage here is an ironic reversal of the idealism in Wordsworth’s War Poetry.The first line cements the dominant idea of this poem that happy are those who made themselves impervious to the suffering of others.The adverb, “yet” in “Happy are men who yet before they are killed” creates pathos because death is seen as inevitable.The cold “learned” indifference of the soldiers is captured through visual display of stepping on dead bodies in grotesque metaphors like “alleys cobbled with their brothers”, “gaps for filling”… The phrase “The front line withers”, a flower imagery heightens the gradual depletion of human lives upon the advance of the enemies.Use of “But” signifies a check on poetic license to over romanticize the soldiers who will fade when compared to flowers.The para-rhymes in “fooling/filling” creates a tension between poetry about wars and the actual death of soldiers during war time.Ends with “no one bothers” – a pathetic state and a bitter tone is detected here. 1 / 2

CONTENT (2)

“And some cease feeling Even themselves or for themselves.” The use of conjunction “And” to begin this stanza and the repetitive use of “themselves” suggest it is a consequence of one’s numbness to deaths in war that the soldiers voluntarily trained to render themselves immune to feeling.The end result is a sense of pity and helplessness for these soldiers.“Dullness best solves The tease and doubt of shelling,” It is better to remain “Dull” – a Victorian usage meaning “unintelligent” – negligence of the mind to feel compassion as a means of mental survival in the battlefield.The losses are unpredictable and unquantifiable as suggested in “the tease and doubt of shelling” that men choose not to rack their brains about it.“And Chance’s strange arithmetic Comes simpler than the reckoning of their shilling.They keep no check on armies’ decimation.” Chance is personified as possessing a strange arithmetic.Arithmetic of the number of death is enormous. Death of soldiers is more than enlistment of young men into the army.“To take a King’s shilling” is a euphemisim to sign up and join the army.The para-rhymes in “shelling/shilling” are again very disconcerting to the reader. The aural and visual contrast here is very sharp.End with “They” – a reference to Commanders at Home Front who “keep no check on armies’ decimation”. This reveals the destruction of lives is of no concern to these commanders.

CONTENT (3)

“Happy are these who lose their imagination:” is another ironic comment about the mental state of the soldiers. It is better for them not to envisage the pains around them.Speaker lists 6 things after the colon in the first line that will happen to these “happy soldiers” – decimation of all their senses and feelings for people around them – a survival instinct of many at the trenches.oThey could have the bravery to carry ammunition, (“They have enough to carry with ammunition.”) ostrength to have backpacks behind them, (“Their spirit drags no pack.)

• their wounds would not ache anymore, (“Their old wounds, save with cold, can not

more ache.”) otheir would not be hurt by the colour of blood, (“Having seen all things red, Their eyes are rid Of the hurt of the colour of blood forever.” ono terror would enter their thoughts, (“And terror’s first constriction over,) ono more compassion in their hearts and they would have lost all their senses which could only obstruct them from killing the enemies. (“Their hearts remain small- drawn.)

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