In the poem 'Futility' by Wilfred Owen, he emphasises that war is pointless and stresses that the soldiers that have died in the war would not come back to life. He illustrates this by comparing nature with life. In the first stanza, Owen personifies the sun and makes it seem like the sun is the one who is waking the soldier up - " Move him into the sun- Gently its touch awoke him once..." This quote from the first stanza contradicts the last stanza as it starts with: "Think how it wakes the seeds - Woke once the clays of a cold star." This verse is implying that one day the sun woke the clays of a cold star - the word 'once' is in the past tense which hints to the reader that the sun, at this point, is a failure to do its duty which is waking the soldier up. Also, when comparing with the first stanza we can evidently see that in the second stanza, the sun has failed to wake that soldier up because of its inability and its degree of power. The rhetorical …show more content…
The poem is disembodied as Owen is not there to experience any of the horrific incidents yet he closely collaborates himself with the terror and horror that the soldiers are going through. The title alone stimulates mercy. The word 'doomed' implies that the poem is going to talk about something tragic and the fact that Owen concentrates on the 'youth' implies that their young years are over. Moreover, anthems is a positive thing but the contradiction between anthem and doomed makes us question why he chose those particular words when in fact it is a