“Futility” by Wilfred Owen Essay

The poem titled Futility signification uselessness or bear witnesslessness. Owen is trying to say this war is the pointless war. The soldiers ar useless that theyre dead. No matter how much the soldier work, it doesnt worth it. The poem is written in fourteen lines and divided into two verses. The two verses are contrast each other. The first verses atmosphither is quite, soft, tender and peaceful and the second verses atmosphere sounds more desperate, frustrate, ridiculous and demanding for something to happen.In the first verse, three verbs that describe the action of the Sun, move, gently, and touch are quite soft and tender. These verbs describe that the sunniness move softly, gently and touch the soldier to wash him up. The sun here means the sun that shines everyday to put forward the man and at the same time it may symbolize religious. The sun that used to wake him up and care for him. Its metaphor that the sun moves the man into the light.The third line of verse one, i t mentioned that the soldier was once a farmer. The word whispering is onomatopoeia meaning the sun is whispering to the man about the memories the man used to have on the farm. Its a soft and tender plus pleading together. unplanted means that the field has not seeded but yet the sun is shining now to tell the man that its the ascendent of the planting while now. In other meaning, the word unsown is metaphor that the soldier is still too young for them to join the war, as they havent start their grownup bread and butter yet.The fourth and fifth lines, Always it awoke him, even in France, until this morning and this snow. The sun symbolizes the warmth of life and the snow symbolizes the coldness of death. The sun always arouses him all over even hes in France but this morning is different because snow has partially block the man so the man wasnt fitting to wake up. The word morning has two different meaning. One is the everyday morning, which is the beginning of the day and th e second meaning referring to the word mourning. Owen is mourning for the man who has die.The hold up two line of the last two line, Owen is pleading to god, please please if anything can rouse him now please do it and in this case whole god who can do it. Only the old sun that used to be very kind can wake him up now. The sun here is personified by referring the sun as old and kind. Through the whole verse Owen cause the sound by using assonance of the repetition of ow sound in woke, unsown, snow, rouse, now and know.Owen used an imperative verb, think, at the beginning of the second verse. Its order the reader to think and at the same time Owen also process it sound more desperate. He is desperate to think on how the sun will wake the seeds. The seeds here give the image of growth and nature and it symbolized the beginning of life. He is desperate to ask how god wakes the soldier that is already died on the ground.The third line of the second verse mention the word limbs, it h as two meaning. start-off a limb is a branch of a tree, which fit in with the nature. Second meaning means the pair of legs, arms and wings. Owen means that god create these nature and mankind. The line after this said full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir? Owen means that he still dont understand how the sun gives life to seeds, but not the warmness to these soldier.The fifth line Was it for this the clay grew tall? this refer to the war. Clay is mud and mud comes from Earth. The clay grew tall in this case the clay symbolized man. In this line Owen was asked what was this war for? Do we do all this to kill? Is this why we put him on this Earth? So what is the point of life?The last two lines O what made fatuous sunbeams toil to break Earths sleep at all? Owen ask this enquire starting with what made, he means what is the point of sending these men these men to the war and died at that place? Its seems so silly that the sun create life for these him and then let them died w ith regret.The first verse focuses upon a dead soldier and second verse asked why the sun is shining at all. Why there is life when there is such a suffering, Owen is trying to say if the sun can wake up life on Earth but why cant it wake up his soldier because what he thinks is that if anything could make the soldier it must be the sun.