Wilfred Owen Dehumanism

According to the Encyclopedia of World Biography of “Wilfred Owen,” they talk about his background and his career after World War I. Wilfred Owen was born in Oswestry, England, on March 18, 1893. He became widely recognized as a British poet for his experience and impressions upon World War I. He was the eldest out of the four in his family. His father worked on the railway, and his mother was strict in her religious beliefs, yet still had affection for her children. In Owen’s Christian household, they practiced biblical themes and teachings. Before the war, he utilized Christian imagery in his poetry as well as strengthening his faith in his religion, but after he realized that his faith in religion didn’t help and was hopeless. So during

John Hughes’ critical essay “Owen’s ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’” supports the idea of the horrors of the war because he believes that soldiers in World War I were often dehumanized by the effects of the war. He states, “At the same time, this reading, in my view, adds a new resonance to the poem 's specification of the horror and the cost of war. My reading will center on the two-line stanza in the middle of the poem where Owen describes the death of his maskless comrade in the gas attack” (Hughes 1). This quote about Hughes’ analysis gives the readers an insight that war is a haunting experience in the mind and the body of the soldiers who have never faced the psychological effects of war. The image of Owen’s dreams about the soldier who suffocated and died in the gas demonstrates a traumatizing

George Johnson’s critical essay “‘Purgatorial Passions’: ‘The Ghost’ (a.k.a. Wilfred Owen) in Owen’s poetry” he discusses Wilfred Owen’s poetry about the civilians’ delusion about the inhumanity of World War I. In Owen’s poems, he mainly “assigned himself the role of witness to "the pity of War," providing a warning of war 's truth for the next generation; to a large extent he succeeded since our perception of World War One, and perhaps of all wars, has been indelibly impressed by his truth” (Johnson 1). This supports the idea that the truth about the horrors of the war should be revealed to the civilians. Owen’s poetry targets at people who are not experienced with the war. Perhaps the truth is depicted by an image of soldiers who look wearied and lost their humanity. Although, people send others out to fight thinking it is glorious, after knowing the truth, people would be convinced to not participate in the war. Johnson uses another source to support his argument. He states, “Object relations theory proposes that a child 's inability to manage adaptive separation from the original caretaker, typically the mother, which serves as a prototype for subsequent bonds, will lead to later maladjustments and even psychopathology” (Johnson). Young soldiers who separate from their parents have trouble with being independent because they want to be protected during the war. However, young men often want to be