Owen

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Owens Mental Cases

• Michelle Dow
• Marcia Kishida
• IB English SL (days 2/4)
• Ms. Zeiler

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Wilfred Owen

• British soldier in WWI
• suffered from shell shock (post traumatic
  stress disorder)
• Craiglockhart War Hospital
• Wrote poetry as a way to heal

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(No Transcript)
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Song and Picture

• Beethovens Moonlight Sonata of 1801
• Solemn, slow pace, creates image of someone
  wondering around and lost his mind
• Gradually build up the painful atmosphere
• happier melodies, but only for short period -
  contrast feeling that emphasize sadness.
• Audience ? sad, painful

• Taken by Official War Photographer at an
  Australian Advanced Dressing Station near Ypres
  in 1917
• thousand-yard stare which Owen describes in
  imagery
• Disturbing tone, atmosphere

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Definitions

• (l. 2) Purgatorial removing or purging sin
• (l.13) Sloughs muddy, swampy area
• (l.18) Rucked to make a fold in crease
• (l. 26) Knouts used for flogging
• (l. 26) Scourging whip or lash, esp. for the
  infliction of punishment

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Title Mental Cases

• Medical cases in which the damage is in the mind
• Madness

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Focus Statement

• Owen conveys the theme of the mental toll on
• soldiers from the horrors of war, lasts forever
• leading to a state of madness, and also the guilt
  of
• those who look on by using
• figurative language, including implied metaphors
  and similes which also creates imagery
• a guilty tone created by diction, sound devices,
  and voice
• Syntax, such as grammatical errors, questions and
  hyphens to emphasize key lines.

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Figurative Language

• Implied Metaphors
• Similes
• Imagery

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Implied Metaphors

• (l. 2) Wherefore rock they, purgatorial
  shadows,
• (l.6) Gouged these chasms round their fretted
  sockets?
• (l.13-14) Wading sloughs of fleshTreading blood
  from lungs

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Similes

• (l.4) Baring teeth that leer like skulls
  tongues wicked?
• (l. 22) Dawn breaks open like a wound that
  bleeds afresh

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Body Imagery

• Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?
• Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,
• Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their
  relish,
• Baring teeth that leer like skulls' tongues
  wicked?
• Stroke on stroke of pain, but what slow panic,
• Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?
• Ever from their hair and through their hand palms
• Misery swelters. Surely we have perished
• Sleeping, and walk hell but who these hellish?
• These are men whose minds the Dead have
  ravished.
• Memory fingers in their hair of murders,
• Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.
• Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,
• Treading blood from lungs that had loved
  laughter.
• Always they must see these things and hear them,
• Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,
• Carnage incomparable and human squander
• Rucked too thick for these men's extrication.

• scattered throughout poem, like dismembered limbs
  
• gory/graphic gt realities the soldiers faced
• disturbing atmosphere
• repetition of blood gt feeling of being
  surrounded by blood

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Light/Dark Imagery

• (l. 1) Why sit they here in twilight
• (l. 2) purgatorial shadows,
• (l. 21-22) Sunlight seems a blood-smear night
  comes blood-black Dawn breaks open like a wound

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Tone

• Diction
• Sound devices
• Voice

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Diction

• Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?
• Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,
• Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their
  relish,
• Baring teeth that leer like skulls' tongues
  wicked?
• Stroke on stroke of pain, but what slow panic,
• Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?
• Ever from their hair and through their hand palms
• Misery swelters. Surely we have perished
• Sleeping, and walk hell but who these hellish?
• These are men whose minds the Dead have
  ravished.
• Memory fingers in their hair of murders,
• Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.
• Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,
• Treading blood from lungs that had loved
  laughter.
• Always they must see these things and hear them,
• Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,
• Carnage incomparable and human squander
• Rucked too thick for these men's extrication.

• Punishment/penance, show suffering of soldiers
  and guilt of onlookers
• Oxymorons, unnatural state of soldiers

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AlliterationLink contrasting words
togethersmooth gt sorrowful tone, not angry

• Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?
• Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,
• Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their
  relish,
• Baring teeth that leer like skulls' tongues
  wicked?
• Stroke on stroke of pain, but what slow panic,
• Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?
• Ever from their hair and through their hand palms
• Misery swelters. Surely we have perished
• Sleeping, and walk hell but who these hellish?
• These are men whose minds the Dead have
  ravished.
• Memory fingers in their hair of murders,
• Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.
• Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,
• Treading blood from lungs that had loved
  laughter.
• Always they must see these things and hear them,
• Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,
• Carnage incomparable and human squander
• Rucked too thick for these men's extrication.
• Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented

16

• Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?
• Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,
• Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their
  relish,
• Baring teeth that leer like skulls' tongues
  wicked?
• Stroke on stroke of pain, but what slow panic,
• Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?
• Ever from their hair and through their hand palms
• Misery swelters. Surely we have perished
• Sleeping, and walk hell but who these hellish?
• These are men whose minds the Dead have
  ravished.
• Memory fingers in their hair of murders,
• Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.
• Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,
• Treading blood from lungs that had loved
  laughter.
• Always they must see these things and hear them,
• Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,
• Carnage incomparable and human squander
• Rucked too thick for these men's extrication.
• Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented

• Assonance
• smooth gt sorrowful tone, not angry

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Consonanceharsher, for more traumatic
subjectsDisonance

• Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?
• Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,
• Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their
  relish,
• Baring teeth that leer like skulls' tongues
  wicked?
• Stroke on stroke of pain, but what slow panic,
• Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?
• Ever from their hair and through their hand palms
• Misery swelters. Surely we have perished
• Sleeping, and walk hell but who these hellish?
• These are men whose minds the Dead have
  ravished.
• Memory fingers in their hair of murders,
• Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.
• Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,
• Treading blood from lungs that had loved
  laughter.
• Always they must see these things and hear them,
• Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,
• Carnage incomparable and human squander
• Rucked too thick for these men's extrication.
• Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented

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Voice

• (l. 27-28) Snatching after us who smote them,
  brother, pawing us who dealt them war and
  madness
• Clear distinction btw. reader speaker vs.
  soldiers (us vs. them)
• not accusatory, not YOU who has smote them
• still uses these not those to bring soldiers
  closer

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Syntax

• Grammatical Errors
• Hyphens
• Questions

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Grammatical Errors

• Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?
• Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,
• Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their
  relish,
• Baring teeth that leer like skulls' tongues
  wicked?
• Stroke on stroke of pain, but what slow panic,
• Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?
• Ever from their hair and through their hand palms
• Misery swelters. Surely we have perished
• Sleeping, and walk hell but who these hellish?
• - These are men whose minds the Dead have
  ravished.
• Memory fingers in their hair of murders,
• Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.
• Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,
• Treading blood from lungs that had loved
  laughter.
• Always they must see these things and hear them,
• Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,
• Carnage incomparable and human squander
• Rucked too thick for these men's extrication.
• Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented

• creates feeling something is wrong
• makes reader stop and think
• emphasize lines

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Questions

• Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?
• Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,
• Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their
  relish,
• Baring teeth that leer like skulls' tongues
  wicked?
• Stroke on stroke of pain, but what slow panic,
• Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?
• Ever from their hair and through their hand palms
• Misery swelters. Surely we have perished
• Sleeping, and walk hell but who these hellish?
• These are men whose minds the Dead have
  ravished.
• Memory fingers in their hair of murders,
• Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.
• Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,
• Treading blood from lungs that had loved
  laughter.
• Always they must see these things and hear them,
• Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,
• Carnage incomparable and human squander
• Rucked too thick for these men's extrication.
• Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented

• Brings audience in, makes them think when
  questions are directly posed

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Hyphens

• Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?
• Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,
• Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their
  relish,
• Baring teeth that leer like skulls' tongues
  wicked?
• Stroke on stroke of pain, but what slow panic,
• Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?
• Ever from their hair and through their hand palms
• Misery swelters. Surely we have perished
• Sleeping, and walk hell but who these hellish?
• These are men whose minds the Dead have
  ravished.
• Memory fingers in their hair of murders,
• Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.
• Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,
• Treading blood from lungs that had loved
  laughter.
• Always they must see these things and hear them,
• Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,
• Carnage incomparable and human squander
• Rucked too thick for these men's extrication.
• Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented

• breaks pace gt brings attention to following
  sentence
• answers questions posed

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Linking to Other Poems

• Dissimilar to Dulce et Decorum Est
• (l. 25-26) My friend, you would not tell with
  such high zest to childrenthe old Lie
• No bitter, sarcastic tone
• Similar to Strange Meeting
• (l. 39) Foreheads of men have bled where no
  wounds were.
• Continual mental suffering