2. Wilfred Owen
● 1893-1918 (died age 25)
● He fought and died during
WWI.
● Only five of his poems were
published in his lifetime -
FUTILITY was one of them.
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10. The poem functions as an elegy
(which is a song, poem, or speech
that expresses grief for one who is
dead and it is usually melancholy in
tone). for the dead soldier.
“ I can see no excuse for deceiving you
about these last four days. I have
suffered seventh hell. – I have not
been at the front. – I have been in front
of it. – I held an advanced post, that is,
a dug-out in the middle of No Man’s
Land. We had a march of three miles
over shelled road, then nearly three
along a flooded trench. After we came
to where the trenches had been blown
flat out and had to go over the top. It
was of course, too dark, too dark, and
the ground was not mud, not sloppy
mud, but an octopus of sucking clay,
three, four and five feet deep, relieved
only by craters full of water…”
11. Move him into the sun—
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it awoke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds—
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs (so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved,- still warm,)- too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all? FUTILITY
12. VOCABULARY
● futility - pointlessness
● rouse - to make someone
get up
● stir - wake up
● sow - to plant seed
● fatuous - pointless
● toil - hard work
13. Lines 1 - 3
● The fact that the speaker
doesn’t use the man’s name
emphasizes how
dehumanising war was.
● The matter-of-fact tone of the
first line shows how soldiers
were used to death
● Personification: the sun is cast
in a role similar to that of a
loving mother waking a child.
● ‘At home’ evokes nostalgia.
● Sleep is often used as a
euphemism for death.
● ‘fields unsown’ Literally: fields
that have not had seeds
planted in them. Figuratively:
the man’s life that has barely
been lived.
Move him into the sun—
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
14. Lines 4 - 7
● France was where WWII’s
most intense battles were
fought.
● ‘Until’ signifies a shift in tone
from hope to desperation.
● Snow: contrasts the sun and
is a symbol of the harsh
reality surrounding the man.
● Repetition of ‘this’
emphasizes the difference
between this day and all the
others
● Extended personification:
the sun is the ultimate
physician yet it is impotent
against death.Always it awoke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.
15. Lines 8 – 9
● Clay: the substance God
used to create people.
● The sun causes seeds to
germinate and even brought
life to the earth and to
humans.
● Alliteration. The harsh “C”
sound reflects the coldness of
the earth before the sun gave
it life.
Think how it wakes the seeds—
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Isaiah 64:8
But now, O Lord, thou art our
father; we are the clay, and
thou our potter; and we all are
the work of thy hand.
Genesis 2:7
And the Lord God formed
man of the dust of the
ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life; and
man became a living soul.
16. Lines 10 - 12
● ‘Dear-achieved’: the creation
of a human is an amazing
thing.
● The repeated rhetorical
questions evoke a sense of
desperation.
● ‘this’ conveys a sense of
bitterness. The speaker
seems to want to avoid even
the mention of the word war
or death.
Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved,- still warm,- too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?
17. ● The speaker is frustrated that
the sun which seems to be so
powerful is unable to give life
to someone that has only just
died.
● The subject of the question
escalates from being the
dead man to the entirety of
humanity.
● The sun (and life itself) is no
longer revered but is reduced
to futility.
● Life itself seems entirely
pointless if it is going to be
taken away in this manner.
- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?
Lines
13 - 14
18. THEME
Man versus Nature
Nature is represented by the
sun. The sun is romanticized,
personified and portrayed as
life-giving. All this is brought
to nothing (made futile) by the
death of the man and the war
that was responsible for it.
