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The poem, like so much of Wilfred Owen's poetry, reflects on the futility of war and emphasises the
emotions of loss and remembrance.
The poem focuses on a soldier who is in shock and denial -- he cannot believe that his friend is dead.
He believes the sun, with all its restorative powers, should be able to resuscitate his friend.
ABOUT THE POET
Wilfred Owen was born in 1893 in Shropshire to a family of committed Christians. He was educated at
the Birkenhead Institute and Shrewsbury Technical College.
He wanted to become a teacher but his father could not afford the university fees. Instead, therefore, he
journeyed to France in 1913 where he worked as a tutor. He also wrote occasional poetry, none of which
is particularly known.
When the Great War broke out in 1914, Owen maintained a vague interest in events through cuttings from
newspapers sent by his mother with whom he had a close relationship. Eventually, however, the pressure
of propaganda reached him and, in October 1915, he returned to England and enlisted. He was then
22 years of age.
The poet spent a year in training. Letters to his mother reveal that he enjoyed the prestige of wearing the
military uniform. His training finished at the end of 1916 whereupon he joined the 2nd Manchesters
in France where he took command of No. 3 Platoon.
His enthusiasm initially abounded but soon he was sent to the frontline and witnessed firsthand the
awfulness of warfare -- living in trenches which were forever knee-deep in mud and water, the rotting
corpses of soldiers, the dreadful war injuries.
"I have suffered seventh hell," he wrote to his mother. "I have not been at the front. I have been
in front of it . . . to where the ground was not mud, not sloppy mud, but an octopus of sucking
clay, three, four, and five feet deep, relieved only by craters full of water . . . "
Initially Owen's character and temperament did not suit his being a soldier. He was a scholar and a poet
--
introverted and sensitive. Moreover, he was a committed Christian whose ideals were opposed to warfare
in any form. It was during this period that he appears to have penned most of his anti-war poems.
The war forced him to face a conflict between his Christian beliefs and his role as a soldier. "I am more
and more a Christian," he wrote to his mother in May 1917. "Suffer dishonour and disgrace, but
never resort to arms. Be bullied, be outraged, be killed: but do not kill."
Late in 1917 Owen received a serious injury and was sent home, suffering from shell-shock. While
recuperating in the military hospital, he fell under the influence of the anti-war poet, Siegfried Sassoon,
who aided him in polishing his war poetry.
Yet Owen appears to have had a distinct dislike for pacifists and did not want to be identified with them.
Indeed, he felt that his poetry could have a far deeper impact if emanating from a soldier in the trenches.
For that reason, therefore, he re-enlisted for the army and, in October 1918, he rejoined his company in
France. This time, however, he appears to have identified himself with the soldiers and took tremendous
risks in battle.
During one encounter, he captured a German machine gun and used it to decimate a host of enemy
soldiers, for which deed he won the Victoria Cross. Although he denied it in letters to his mother, he
appears now to have become a killing machine.
In early November, just one week before the armistice which ended the war, he supervised the
construction of a bridge to cross the Sambre and Oise Canal. Wave after wave of his own men were
massacred in the attempt. Wilfred Owen too fell in a flurry of machine gun bullets.
He was buried in a small British cemetery in northern France. He was then just 25 years of age.
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
Examine the structure of the poem and explain whether or not it is a sonnet. (4)
[Need help?]
Although this poem consists of 14 lines, it is not a sonnet since it does not follow the required structure.
It is not divided into 3 quatrains and a rhyming couplet like a Shakespearian sonnet; neither is it divided
into an octave (the first 8 lines) and a sestet (the last 6 lines) like the Italian sonnet.
It also does not follow the required iambic pentameter rhythm scheme for a sonnet, i.e. ten syllables per
line broken in five feet of an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable.
In this poem, Owen has divided the 14 lines into two stanzas of seven lines each.
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Owen has decided on the title "Futility". Account for his choice of title. (3)
[Need help?]
Owen's choice of title highlights his view of war -- war is pointless and there is no glory or honour in it.
It simply causes a wasteful loss of young lives.
The poet stresses that war does not achieve anything -- only destruction and death.
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"Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France."
- Identify the figure of speech and quote another example of its usage from the first four lines of the
poem. (2)
[Need help?]
It is example of personification. The sun is given the human quality of speech.
Another example is "Gently its touch".
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- Why does Owen feel the need to specify "even in France" ? (3)
[Need help?]
Owen was involved in the trench warfare in France. With these words, he points out the precariousness
of life during wartime.
There was no guarantee that anyone would survive the night in the trenches. Owen says they did not
simply wake up in the mornings: the sun restored them to life each day.
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- Account for the choice and position of the word "Always". (4)
[Need help?]
By placing the word first in the line, Owen draws our attention to it. He emphasises that the sun has
always managed to restore his friend to life -- it is something he has come to expect.
The implication of the word is that he expects the sun to continue exercising this power on a permanent
basis. It always worked in the past, so why not now?
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"Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved, -- still warm, -- too hard to stir?"
- What do the words "dear-achieved" mean? (2)
[Need help?]
Owen says that it took a lot of special effort and care to create the body of the dead man. It is a pity to
allow that labour to go to waste.
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- For what reason does he describe the body as "Full-nerved"? (3)
[Need help?]
The poet wants to emphasise the point that the body still has its nervous system -- in fact it is still warm
-- so surely resurrecting him will be easy. He has not been dead long.
His body is there -- it is simply a matter of breathing life back, like awaking him each morning. The sun
does not have to put in too much effort.
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"Until this morning and this snow."
- To what does the word "this" refer? (2)
[Need help?]
It refers to the futility of war and its violent destruction. War destroys not only land and cities, it also
destroys young lives.
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"-- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?"
- The poet has decided to use a rhetorical question to end the poem. Explain his reason for doing
so. (3)
[Need help?]
A rhetorical question does not require an answer. It is actually a statement.
The poet states that the effort that goes into the creation of life is a waste of time since soldiers are killed
when they are still young. He feels that the sun should not even have bothered.
He questions the point of giving life in the first place.
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- What does the poet's use of the word "fatuous" emphasise? (3)
[Need help?]
"Fatuous" means "foolish" or "illusory".
Owen emphasises the futility of the sun's efforts in creating life in the first place. The sun worked so hard
to create life which will be destroyed at a young age. It was therefore a pointless waste of the sun's effort
and hard labour ("toil").
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