The Letter By Wilfred Owen Tone

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“The Letter” by Wilfred Owen deals with the atrocities of war. The soldier writes a letter to his wife telling her what is going on around him. He lies to make everything sound better than it actually is. However, his separate conversation with his comrade reveals the truth of war. These different conversations show how protecting loved ones from the reality of war can have both comforting and damaging results- which can be delineated by the speaker’s diction, and carefully formed prosody.
Throughout the poem, the soldier tries to hide the realities of war from his wife by his conscious choice of diction; however the truth manages to reveal itself. The poem starts off with a very comfortable tone but shifts to present conversations with his …show more content…

The speaker tells his wife that “[he] don’t see much of them square-‘eaded ‘Uns” (l.5). He drops the letter “h” and makes grammatical errors that exhibit his illiteracy. His clumsy sentence formations display it, too. In line five, he means to say that he does not see many of “those Huns” but replaces “those” with "them”. The “Huns” refer the enemies of World War I. The speaker speaks to his wife in a comfortable tone to avoid causing any suspicion and to arouse optimism and hope. In contrast, the diction choice changes when the speaker converses with his comrade. When the speaker gets shot, he screams, “Guh! Christ! I’m hit/ Take ‘old/ No, damn your iodine.” (l.20-21). The “h” sound is aspirated on the word "hit" to emphasize the impact of the bullet. The immense pain makes him swear and criticize any help being offered. This shows that during turmoil, it is difficult to be discreet. Even though the soldier tries to protect his family from the truth to comfort them, the truth always manages to spill out in some way. He tries to convince his wife that the war will not harm him but his death at the end of the poem unravels the truth. In addition to this, the varying prosody also shows how protecting loved ones

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