Brother, Victim, Criminal

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Recommended: Wilfred Owen analyses poems

"Brother, Victim, Criminal" Poetry Explication The poem "Brother, Victim, Criminal" dramatizes the contrasting forces of a grieving brother, who is affronted by the merciless act of "justice", and a taciturn police officer, who lacks compassion for the deed he just committed. Rhys Owen illustrates the perspectives of a grieving man who has just countersigned his brother's murder and a police officer who feels little compassion for the life he just seized, but more egotism in "knowing that justice was served" (line 17). Both speakers' inspirations establish the contrast between heartbreak and justice. The brother's motivation in this poem could be to describe the melancholy tragedy that occurred to him and the devastating sorrow that drowned him after his sibling's slaughter. In contrast, the …show more content…

The clever composition of the moment-to-moment feelings and judgments of the two perspectives advance multiple questions, causing the reader to crave to know more. More specifically, they yearn to know what the committed crime is. Many perceptive vocabulary words are amalgamated into Owen's poem. His use of the word "wry" to portray the "smile that warmed my heart so many times" dictates the sarcastic, dry humor that the first speaker will always reminisce about his brother (line 4). From the policeman's viewpoint, he states that "I recoil from the pitiful wreck before me", exercising the word "recoil" to depict the effect that seeing the dead body has on him, making him draw back and shy away from the scene (line 14). Another prominent aspect of poetry is entrenched within this poem, imagery. The first speaker pronounces his brothers "startling blue eyes" that he will never observe again (line 3). A few lines later, he expresses of the "cold, steel bullet" that destroyed his brother, who held a large part of his heart (line

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