Question Home

Position:Home>Poetry> What makes Wilfred Owen's poem 'Send Off' a well written poem? ?


Question: What makes Wilfred Owen's poem 'Send Off' a well written poem!? !?

http://www!.englishverse!.com/poems/the_se!.!.!.

I can think of some things like the use of some personifications and oxymorons, and that the title could have a double meaning, but not much more!.

So what makes it a well written poem!?Www@QuestionHome@Com


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
Wilfred Owen
The Send-off

As in many of his poems, we have a grim irony just in the title alone

Down the close, darkening lanes they sang their way
To the siding-shed,

We have images of ending (darkening) and a prefiguring "close, darkening" image of the trenches these men will soon find themselves in!.

And lined the train with faces grimly gay!.

Juxtaposition of 'grimly' and 'gay'

Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray
As men's are, dead!.

Again, an ironic observation, the flowers given them to celebrate the send-off are similar to funeral wreaths!.

Dull porters watched them, and a casual tramp
Stood staring hard,

Again, juxtaposition of the 'dull porters!.!.!.casual tramp' with the soldiers

Sorry to miss them from the upland camp!.
Then, unmoved, signals nodded, and a lamp
Winked to the guard!.

So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went!.

An ironic comparison, and also showing Owen's feeling that the War is wromgh

They were not ours:

Compare the continuous description of troops as "Our Boys"

We never heard to which front these were sent!.

Nor there if they yet mock what women meant
Who gave them flowers!.

Refers back to the line "Their breasts were stuck!.!.!.!."


Shall they return to beatings of great bells
In wild trainloads!?
A few, a few, too few for drums and yells,
May creep back, silent, to still village wells
Up half-known roads!.

The bitterness of knowledge that most of the men will perish, and not return to celebrations of victory!.

Like much of Owen's work it uses a lot of irony and realistic imagery to expose the pity and hypocricy of warWww@QuestionHome@Com