With Reference to “Out, Out” and “Disabled”, how do Frost and Owen create a sense of pathos?
Wilfred Owen’s poem ‘Disabled’ concerns a young soldier who returns from the Great War suffering terrible injuries. The title of the poem is significant in creating a sense of pathos as it makes clear that the theme of loss will be explored throughout. Robert Frost’s poem ‘Out, Out’ is about a young boy sawing wood in the Vermont mountains who accidentally cuts his hand off with the saw and dies. The title is an allusion to the Shakespearean tragedy where, on hearing of his wife’s death, Macbeth says “out, out brief candle”. The reader can deduce from the title that the poem will concern the brevity and fragility of life. Owen and Frost use pathos
…show more content…
The buzz saw is personified using animalistic imagery creating a deep sense of fear and a real awareness of the immense power which the saw yields. “Buzz saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled.” The reader feels pity for the boy as the repeated use of the verb “snarled” creates the image that the saw has a life of its own and the boy is not at fault when he loses his hand. Therefore, the use of personification emphasises innocence. Similarly, Owen uses personification in the poem ‘Disabled’ to convey the horrific injures the solider endured. In personifying blood as “Leap of purple spurted” and the use of a dynamic verb, a vivid image of a creature leaping from his war wound is created causing a sorrowful emotional response from the reader. Sleep is also cleverly personified as a mother gathering up her children using the metaphor of “till gathering sleep had mothered” the boys’ voices. This underlines a sense of pain and of physical isolation which helps the reader feel pity for the soldier who is cold and tired and yet unable to move until someone remembers that he needs putting to …show more content…
The damaged soldier at the centre of ‘Disabled’ is a powerful symbol of the destruction and aftermath of war. Prior to enlisting, he “liked a blood smear down his leg” and “after football… drunk a peg” implying his naivety and that he was unaware of the true realities of war. The football game and the blood smear symbolise the way in which men saw war as a game to be won with honour and glory, but which ended in bloodshed and slaughter. The buzz saw in "Out, Out" symbolises the mindless power of machinery which can destroy human life, when out of man’s control. It symbolises the fragility of life and the danger of child labour. By using these symbols, both poets create a feeling of compassion for the personas, both of whom experience accidental
While the poem's situation is simple, its theme is not. Stafford appears to be intimating that life is precious and fragile; however, nothing so clearly discloses these attributes of life as confrontation with death. Furthermore, the very confrontations that engender appreciation of life's delicacies force action-all to frequently callous action.
Poets have often used symbols to convey deeper messages that they were either too afraid or felt that normal language lacked the power to express. Often when a symbol is used, the reader digs deeper into the issue more than if the message was simply shot out in the open. These symbols and metaphors can be used to portray beautiful things, or could be used to create a more compelling argument in a more subtle way.
Even though the war is over, it is still remembered. There seems to be diminished optimism and no smiles are evident as the season of autumn is underway. The first line of the poem is conflicting in the language and visual on “By the road to the contagious hospital”. A hospital should be a place of healing but sickness is implied which provides uncertainty. The feeling of cold and misery can be felt from the movement in the sky as quoted “under the surge of the blue/ mottled clouds, driven from the/ northeast- a cold wind…” (Ln 2-4) which provides a mood of anxiety and expectations. . A chilly reception could be received by the soldiers upon returning home as those left behind cannot relate or imagine what they’ve endured. The depiction of, “…muddy fields brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen” (Ln 5-6) feels gloomy with reminders of the soldiers that have fallen in battle. Welcoming home the servicemen and visiting them in hospitals or in rehabilitation facilities can be quite traumatic for all those touched by warfare. The reader is reminded that the journey is tough when images of the past events penetrate thoughts. In addition the brown landscaping is mundane, depressing and all encompassing. However, “the scattering of tall trees” (Ln 8) provides a glimmer of a future as the trees provide a vision of rising above
Images such as “limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind/Drunk with fatigue”, portray how soldiers lost their boots but nevertheless had to continue walking although their feet were bleeding. Besides this the quote suggests that due to their severe conditions several soldiers were barely able to flee the continuous gas or bombs attacks from the enemies. Finally, in order to describe the unawareness of the soldiers as well as their terrible conditions and mental state descriptive language such as „asleep, drunk and deaf” have been intensively used throughout Owens
This is about the bullets that puncture the air and the image of ‘smacking’ refers to the winded feelings the solider has as he runs for his life across the field. His ‘numb’ rifle and ‘smashed arm’ have a the same meaning: he could feel numb to the pain he has to cause with the rifle. He could have smashed his rifle into his arm in his panic. This highlights both the soldier’s inexperience and trauma at what he has had to do in the war. This poem highlights the reality of conflicts and the fear and terror that soldiers feel.
Symbols in poetry can be a person , place , thing or idea . In the poem titled “ Love Poem to Los Angeles by Luis J. Rodriguez the poet uses the Hollywood Sign as a symbol to represent famous people . In another poem titled “Santa Ana of Grocery Carts “ by Aracelis Gimary the poet uses schoolyard boys as a symbol to represent young men who have died . The meaning of these symbols is similar because they both can represent people and how they’re special . However, the difference of these symbol is that the hollywood sign represents something only positive in the poem and on the other hand the schoolyard boys represent only something negative because it is related to death .
The poem comprises three stanzas which are patterned in two halves; the rule of three is ingeniously used throughout the poem to create tension and show the progression of the soldiers’ lives. There is a variety of rhyming schemes used – possibly Duffy considered using caesural rhyme, internal rhyme and irregular rhyme to better address the elegiac reality. The rhythm is very powerful and shows Duffy’s technical adroitness. It is slightly disconcerting, and adds to the other worldly ambience of the poem. Duffy uses a powerful comparative in each stanza to exemplify the monstrosity and extent of war, which is much worse than we imagine; it develops throughout each stanza, starting with a syntactical ‘No; worse.’ to ‘worse by far’ and ending on ‘much worse’. Similarly, the verbs used to describe the soldier’s shadow as he falls shows the reader the journey of the shadow, as if it’s the trajectory of soldiers’ lives. At first, the shadow is as an act...
"Out, Out--" by Robert Frost is a poem about a young boy who dies as a result of cutting his hand using a saw. In order to give the reader a clear picture of this bizarre scenario, Frost utilizes imagery, personification, blank verse, and variation in sentence length to display various feelings and perceptions throughout the poem. Frost also makes a reference to Macbeth's speech in the play by Shakespear called Macbeth which is somewhat parallel to the occurrences in "Out, Out-."
The first technique he uses is imagery. Frost does this at the beginning of the poem by talking about all of the beauty of nature that is around the boy. For example, he talks about the mountains in the distance that the boy does not see because he is too busy working. Another example and the most important use of imagery in this poem is the snarling and rattling of the saw. This is essential because it gives the readers a since of life to the saw. Lastly, the sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it gives the reader not only smell but also touch. All of these examples of imagery helps set the mood for the reader and puts them into the poem as an onlooker. Another technique that he uses is figurative language. The saw “snarled and rattled” is the use of figurative language and onomatopoeia because it represents the fate of the boy and the animal-like noise that accompanies the fate. Also, “Call it a day” is figurative language because this represents that if the boy was told to stop working earlier he might have never lost his and hand and would not have died. Frost also uses figurative language when he wrote “The life from spilling” meaning that literally the blood is gushing from his arm and so his life is quickly fading away because the more blood loss the faster arrival of death will come. Irony can also be found in “Out, out” when the boy laughs after his hand is cut off by the saw. This ironic because usually people do not laugh at these types of situations and have the complete opposite reaction which is usually panic. Frost also uses blank verse and no stanzas to convey emotion throughout the poem. He does this by showing the light heartedness of the setting at the beginning of the poem and is invested in the boy, but then as the poem continues he detaches himself from the emotional aspect of the situation the boy is in. For example, when is says, “Call it a day , I
Rather than just solely expressing emotional damage purely through metaphorical and literal objects, “The Manhunt” uses real physical features to manufacture metaphors in order to reveal feelings possible developed in a relationship. For example his wife was able to “feel the hurt/ of his grazed heart”, this metaphor demonstrates the empathy of his partner to appreciate the emotional and physical damage that has been received. The soldier has had his core damaged consequently meaning he has lost the ability to feel emotions particularly love. The half- rhyme between “hurt” and “heart” highlights how the intimacy is waning in their relationship. Another example of the instability of his emotions is that he contains “a sweating, unexploded mine/ buried deep in his mind…”, the juxtaposition created from the metaphor/personification evokes that he is supressing his distress ultimately producing some instability leading back to the location of the initial scarring. Both poets effectively use various devices and images in order to display the emotional and physical corruption that has increasingly strengthened. But “The Manhunt” utilises physical imagery to add extra emphasis on the severe
the poet is trying to portray the fragility of a life, as it is created with the intent to be lost (death
The detailed descriptions of the dead man’s body show the terrible costs of the war in a physical aspect. O’Brien’s guilt almost takes on its own rhythm in the repetition of ideas, phrases, and observations about the man’s body. Some of the ideas here, especially the notion of the victim being a “slim, young, dainty man,” help emphasize O’Brien’s fixation on the effects of his action—that he killed someone who was innocent and not meant to be fighting in the war. At the same time, his focus on these physical characteristics, rather than on his own feelings, betrays his attempt to keep some distance in order to dull the pain. The long, unending sentences force the reader to read the deta...
Owen begins the poem with a depressing description of a man in a wheeled chair “waiting for dark”. The use of the word ‘dark’ gives connotations of death, implying that he’s waiting for his death to come. It also conveys a sense of isolation and sadness as the soldier no longer has a family. The mention of ‘sleep’ in the last line of the stanza can be an indication that death is near, since death is sometimes described as eternal sleep. Personification is used a...
In conclusion, I think that throughout this poem Wilfred Owen has created a mood of anger and injustice. He has done this effectively by using poetic techniques such a imagery, metaphors, similes, alliterations and rhyme. To make the reader feel the same he shocks them with the true horror of the war and involves them in the poem by using words such as 'you'. Owen's true anger and bitterness comes clear at the end with the ironic statement at the end:
The structure in ‘Disabled’ moves from past to present, then back to past. In the first stanza (which is present) Owen emphasizes the soldiers isolation, ‘’sat in a wheeled chair’’, this shows the aftermath of the war (the loss of the soldiers limbs); this makes the reader fell pity for the soldier. Also in the first stanza the imagery and language is dark. Owen makes the reader empathize with the soldier by using the term ‘’shivered’’ which means to shake slightly and uncontrollably as a result of being cold or frightened. In this case the soldier was cold and frightened due to the traumatizing events of war. This also emphasizes shock; it shows how the soldier is mentally scarred due to the war. This contrasts with the second stanza which begins with colourful imagery, ‘’glow lamps…light blue trees’’, this illustrates the good spirits of the town before the war. The contrast compares his life before and after the war, emphasizing the impact war had on soldiers. The structure highlights memory, emotion and sadness.