FutilityBy Wilfred Owen

Images of War

• Look at these images and write down the feelings they evoke

• What they say about World War 1

“Poppies” – “a multisensory explosion”

Susan Owen

Wilfred Owen

‘I was thinking of Susan Owen [mother of World war One soldier ad poet, Wilfred]… and families of soldiers killed in any war when I wrote this poem. This poem attempts on one level to address female experience and is consciously a political act.’

Who is Wilfred Owen?

In a letter to his mother, Susan, Owen wrote: ‘I came

out again in order to help these boys; directly, by

leading them as well as an officer can; indirectly, by

watching their suffering that I may speak of them as well

as a pleader can.

Owen was killed on 4 November 1918 trying to get his men across the

Sambre Canal. The news reached his

parents seven days later, on Armistice

Day.

He was born in 1893 and died

in 1918.

He is now thought of as the poet who

exposed the brutalities of trench

warfare and the senseless waste of life caused by World War

One.

Owen spent only four months fighting and

only five weeks in the front line, but the

shock of the horrors of war was so great

that he decided it was his task to expose the

‘Pity of War’, to represent in poetry

the experiences of the men in his care.

.

Despite his views on the senseless

waste of war, Wilfred Owen was

awarded the Military Cross in

recognition of his courage and

leadership during the breaking of the Hindenburg Line in October

1918.

‘Futility’ by Wilfred Owen

Definition of ‘Futility’(noun)1. The quality of having no usefulresult; uselessness.2. Lack of importance or purpose;frivolousness.3. A futile act or event.

• What does its use suggest about the poet's attitude to war?

Move him into the sun –Gently its touch awoke him once,At home, whispering of fields half-

sown.Always it woke him, even in France,Until this morning and this snow.If anything might rouse him nowThe kind old sun will know.

Suggests he can’t move himself – makes us wonder why

Who is he?What does he represent?

Technique?Purpose?

What profession was he before the war?

Resigned tone line title

Think how it wakes the seeds –Woke once the clays of a cold star.Are limbs, so dear achieved, are sidesFull-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?Was it for this the clay grew tall?– O what made fatuous sunbeams toilTo break earth’s sleep at all?

Both stanzas start with a command making the reader…

The sun is powerful, it brought life to earth but it can’t help now

Questions the reasons forgiving life in war – suggests it’s pointless

Why does the poet end the poem with a question mark

Idea repeated but nothing will wake the soldier

Anger – hints at the pointlessness of war

•What is the point of life being created if it can destroyed so easily?

Exploring the Text

Presentation of nature* Find all the references to nature.* How is nature presented? Why?Use of sounds* Track the sounds of words in this poem?* What do you notice? How is Owen using thesounds of words?Direct address* What examples of direct address are there?* What do they help to achieve within the poem?