Disabled by Wilfred Owen

556 Words2 Pages

Disabled by Wilfred Owen Disabled is a poem written by Wilfred Owen during the war. It is about a man who can't do anything for himself, and therefore has to have other people do things for him. As he sits around doing nothing every day he notices how people treat him. He notices how people look at him as if he was a freak, or had a disease. Verse 1: He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark, And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey, Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn, Voices of play and pleasure after day, Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him. From verse 1 we can gather that, most of the time he sits in a wheel chair waiting for it to get dark. We can say that he has no legs and only one full arm. He can here the children outside laughing and having fun and he wishes he could go out and have fun. Verse 2: About this time Town used to swing so gay When glow-lamps budded in the light blue trees, And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,- In the old times, before he threw away his knees. Now he will never feel again how slim Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands. All of them touch him like some queer disease. In the second verse we see that he missing going out with women and that they all treat him differently because he is disabled, when he is actually mentally healthy, but not physically healthy. Verse 3: There was an artist silly for his face, For it was younger than his youth, last year. Now, he is old; his back will never brace; He's lost his colour very far from here, Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry, And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race And leap of purple spurted from his thigh. In the third verse the poet tells us that the man knew somebody that

Open Document