GRAPHIC IMAGES AND SYMBOLISM IN WILFRED OWEN’S POETRY

Abstract

Wilfred Owen, famously known as the war-poet, is successful in depicting the graphic images of the war. He is able to successfully present the after-war consequences and the traumatic situation of the injured soldiers, the pain and agony they undergo after being injured, losing vigor and being disabled and dependent on someone else is very pathetic. The present article deals with the choice of graphic images by Wilfred Owen and symbolism of creating a voice of pacifism to the youth in his poetry. The poet presents that the injured soldiers merely become the objects of the pity. Wilfred was majorly considered the poet of the First World War. His poems are marked with horror as his major poems are based on war scenes. William Butler Yeats’ pomes had great influence over Owen. The poet tries presenting his war experiences in the poems. The unfolding of the soldier mental state and the consequences that war has brought for the soldier is quite horrifying, difficult to explain but still done were symbolic by Wilfred Owen. The impression of the pitiful situation of the soldier is portrayed in the last stanza of the poem which is mentioned above. The after-war life of the soldier is quite problematic and very dissatisfied for the soldier. The poet succeeds in presenting how dreadful it is after the war. War brings the end of those young soldiers just like the cattle being slaughtered in the farms. As nobody mourns over these farmed-animals, nobody will mourn the death of these young soldiers. Though the church-bells and other signs of the honors are there in the poem but the poet is not portraying them as the signs of the honor rather they are merely presented as something horrifying or inviting someone’s death. The poet succeeds in presenting the futility and uselessness of the war as war is merely the devastator.