A Critical Analysis of Wilfred Owen’s Disabled Essay

Wilfred Owen, a Soldier Poet who spent date in several military hospitals later on existence diagnosed with neuras pastia, wrote the meter alter while at Craiglockhart Hospital, after meeting Seigfried Mad Jack Sassoon. A look at Owens work shows that all of his famed struggle numberss came after the meeting with Sassoon in August 1917 (Childs 49). In a literary argument on the effect the Sassoon meeting had on Owens metrical composition, Professor calamus Childs explains it was after the late-summer meeting that Owen began to use themes dealing with breaking bodies and minds, in poems that attain soldiers as wretches, ghosts, and sleepers (49).Disabled, which Childs lists because of its theme of physiologic loss, is interpreted by virtually critics as a poem that invites the lecturer to pity the above-knee, double-amputee veteran for the loss of his legs, which Owen depicts as the loss of his life. An analysis of this sort relies heavily on a conventional reading of disability, in which people with disabilities atomic number 18 much dependent, child like, passive, sensitive, and miserable than their non incapacitate counterparts, and are depicted as pained by their fate (Linton, 1998, p. 5).See to a greater extent(prenominal) how to write a good critical analysis essay much(prenominal) a reading disregards not only the nationals complaisant impairment, which is directly addressed by Owen, that it also fails to forecast the constructed individualism of the caseful, as defined by the language of the poem. A large soil for the imposition of pity spots from the pen of Owen, himself, who wrote that the chief concern in his poetry is War, and the pity of War. The poetry is in the pity (Kendall, 2003, p. 30). Owens pity nestle to poetry succeeded in protesting the war because it capitalized on human losings.Adrian Caesar makes it very dismiss that the experience of war was Owens reason for bring togethering. Even after being hospitalized for neurasthenia, Owen chose to sire to France because he knew his poetry had improved due to his experience in the trenches (Caesar, 1987, p. 79). Whatever the case, Owen had neurasthenia, or shell shock, a mental disability. Disabled, which is ab come on a veteran with a physical disability, should be viewed as an observation, and when the poem is closely examined, it can be seen to present a myth of disability or else than a realistic depiction.Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, a ren haveed literary critic in the field of Disability Studies, verbalises that literary representation of disability has consistently marginalized characters with disabilities, which in turn facilitates the marginalization of actual people with disabilities. More often than not, writes Garland-Thomson, disability is utilized for its rhetorical or symbolic potential (1997, p. 15). When the reader considers Owens quote around pity, taken along with his intent to protest the war, the disabled up to(p) o f his poem becomes little more than a poster-child for pacifism.Moreover, Owens treatment of the worst exemplifies Garland-Thomsons conclusion that When one person has a indubitable disability . . . it almost always dominates and skews the normates process of sorting out perceptions and forming a reaction (p. 12). The normate, or the nondisabled person, brings to the text a whole rope of cultural assumptions, on which Owen depends, to leave the reader believing war is unsubstantial and not worth the cost in human lives and injuries. My purpose is not to argue to the contrary I am not examining the value of war, only when the devaluation of the disabled figure in Owens poem.Disabled consists of seven stanzas, which Daniel Pigg breaks pig into five vignettes, representing the soldiers life. The first vignette, or first stanza, fit to Pigg, sets the stage for understanding this alienated figure that the poet observes (1997, p. 92). Already the reader finds that the loud speake r unit system occupies a privileged position, because he has no first-hand experience of what it is like to be an amputee and is merely an observer. The speaker sees a legless(prenominal) man, waiting for dark, dressed in a relentless suit of gray (Lines 1-3).This pathetic image proffered to the reader creates a relationship based on pity, meaning that the reader places a high value on his functioning body while devaluing the losses of the present. Waiting for dark could be interpreted as waiting for oddment, and the ghastly suit of gray may as well be the phantom of a ghost. The exit, who is seated near a window, hears male children at reanimate in the park, saddening him until sleep mothered the voices from him (Lines 4, 6).The reader is to fool, as Owen has fabricated, that the undetermined is saddened by memories of multiplication past, when he, too, would play in the park with the other boys. So is the reader to assume that play and pleasure after day (Line 5) are no lifelong available to the theater? The end of the first stanza invites the reader to accept the field of study as being dependent and child-like, as sleep mothered him from the voices. Owen has effectively mold his subject into a convincing Other, a man near death and halfway into the grave.The second vignette, or the second stanza, delves into the subjects past, when he was nondisabled. As a contrast to the first stanza, where the language and imagery is bare(a) and foreboding, the second stanza begins with colorful images of the town, originally the subject acquired his injury. However, the jubilee is short-lived as the reader is soon thrust back into the subjects present mankind, after he threw away his knees (Line 10). In this line the reader becomes aware that the subject feels a certain amount of guilt and self-acknowledgment in the role he has played in the loss of his legs.But before exploring the subjects motives for pith the war, the reader is treated again to Owen s dreary expectation on the veterans life. This time, the discussion is centered on women and how the subject will no longer be able to enjoy their charge or company, for girls now touch him like some queer sickness (Line 13). Piggs analysis of the word queer is worth noting because he uses it as an example of the subjects social displacement. It is in the second stanza that the reader is first encouraged to consider not just the physical impairment, scarcely the social impairment of the subject.Pigg shows that early usage of the word queer to pertain homo innerity began officially in a 1922 document written by the government. Based on this finding, Pigg assumes that the word could have been known and used by popular culture as early as 1917, when Owens poem was penned (1997, p. 91). Pigg claims that Owens use of the term illustrates a loss of potential heterosexual contact, while at the same time pronounceing that alliance has made him what he has become . . . the use of the concept in the poem makes one more aware of oppression in a society that has brought the soldier to this state (p. 1).Even though Pigg analyzes the social construction of the subjects identity, he limits his discussion to societys role in pressuring the soldier to join the war and not with the systematic oppression of disability, the result of the subject association the war. However, this subject is best represented by Owens closing deuce stanzas. In the next branch of the poem, Owen reiterates the format of the previous stanza by give the reader a glimpse of the subjects usual life, before becoming an amputee, when his youth and vitality were admired by an artist.Very rapidly the reader is transported back to the veterans present situation. This juxtaposition of normal/abnormal within the stanzas forces an us and them division between the reader and the subject (Linton, 1998, p. 23). The remembrances of the subject offer an illustration of a typical life with which the rea der can relate, which is then placed next to lines of the poem that offer a picture of what Owen would hope the reader to define as a majestic existence worse than death. The subject, which is an actual person, becomes Owens mascot for the anti-war effort.The next three stanzas of the poem discuss the subjects reasons for entering the war. Again, Pigg offers an interesting interpretation of this section of the poem. According to Pigg, the subject joins the war in an effort to create an identity for himself, an identity which is ultimately based on a lie about his age. In lines 21-29, the subject reminisces about the time he decided to join the war and tries to pinpoint which intoxication lead him to such a closing a victorious football game, a brandy and soda, or the giddy jilts?In each case there is an overabundance of ego involved the subject seeks to capitalize on his ephemeral successes and perpetuate them as long as possible. In joining the war, he sees a way to do this, beca use society identifies those who go to war as heroes and those who do not as less than men. The subject decides it is a girl named Meg he tried to impress, then says Aye . . . to please the giddy jilts (Line 27). A jilt is a capricious woman, a woman who is unpredictable and impulsive.Owens point here is to allow the reader omniscient knowledge of the subject and his belief that the girls will love you for tone ending to war, but if you return with a substantial injury, they become uninterested. This suggests that the girls are more interested in the idea of the soldier, the perfect body, as opposed to the reality of the soldier. Lines 30-36 further explain the subjects reasons for enlistment, stating that they were not because of an interest in foreign affairs, but for the superficial benefits of joining the military.Owen then inserts a small, three-line stanza as a transition from the subjects memories to his current status. Again, the reader is jarred by the juxtaposition of the normal and the abnormal. Instead of receiving a heros welcome, the subject is patronized by his own memories of what he had imagined his return to England would be like Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal (Line 37). The ridicule re-enlists the help of pity, as the reader is encouraged to feel sorry for the subjects decision and subsequent loss.Owens purpose is to show that those who return from the war injured are pitied for their loss, or else than being honored for their sacrifice. The final stanza of the poem completes the circle that brings the reader back to the subjects self-dissolution. He has accepted societys estimation of his worth, or lack thereof, and has resigned himself to discharge a few sick years in institutes/ and do what things the rules consider wise (Lines 40-41). The passive young veteran has acquiesced his life without a fight, but will continue to follow the orders of a society that deems him as invalid.He has officially become disabled, i n every sense of the word. The subject has assumed his role as an object of pity and is ready to take whatsoever pity they may dole, they being the nondisabled (Line 42). Before the poem ends, though, Owen returns the reader thus far again to the giddy jilts and their capricious desires, as their eyes avoid the subjects changed body to look at the men who are lock away whole, suggesting it was not just the soldier they were interested in, but the idealized ideal of beauty (Line 44). Here, the reader is expected to remember the subjects reasons for joining the military.The subjects concern with maintaining a nadir of masculinity and sexual attraction is ironically juxtaposed with his marrow loss of sexuality, which Owen implies is a total loss of identity, except as a spectacle and object of pity. The poem ends with the speakers frantic plea, How cold and late it is Why dont they come/ And put him into bed? Why dont they come? (Lines 45-46). The speaker epitomizes the nondisabl ed persons fear over lack of find out of their own bodies and fates.The speaker realizes that he could just as easily be in he position of the subject, and with this knowledge the speaker agonizes over his own projected fears the cold, desolate, and lonely life of the subject. We will never know the subjects reality, for Owen has locked him into an eternal battle with despair. Owen uses compassionate imagination to establish a link between the soldier and the civilian in an effort to express the abominable losses that come as a result of war (Norgate, 1987, p. 21). Unfortunately, in so doing Owen magnifies the inferior role disability occupies in society, rather than calling it into question.That which has been given up and that which has been taken away subsumes the identity of the subject. Owens one-dimensional representation of disability ignores the will to survive and make the most of the opportunities offered by life, in whatever form it may take. Thompson writes, As physical abilities change, so do individual needs, and the perception of those needs (14). In Disabled, Owen does not allow for change and does not offer the hope of a fulfilling life. Instead, he delivers a scathing portrait of physical and social disablement in early 20th-century England.