SHORT BIOGRAPHY OF WILFRED OWEN

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen, 1893 - 1918

Born Oswestry, Shropshire. Educated at Birkenhead Institute and Shrewsbury
Technical College. From the age of nineteen Owen wanted to be a poet and
immersed himself in poetry. He wrote almost no poetry of importance until he
saw action in France in 1917. He was deeply attached to his mother to whom
most of his 664 letters are addressed. (She saved every one.) He was a
committed Christian and became lay assistant to priest, teaching Bible classes
and leading prayer meetings, as well as helping in other ways. From 1913 to
1915 he worked as a language tutor in France. He felt pressured by the
propaganda to become a soldier and volunteered on 21st October 1915. He
was full of boyish high spirits at being a soldier. Within a week he had been
transported to the front line in a cattle wagon and was "sleeping" in trenches 70
or 80 yards from the enemies which fired every minute or so. He was soon
wading miles along trenches two feet deep in water. Within a few days he was
experiencing gas attacks and was horrified by the stench of the rotting dead; his
sentry was blinded, his company then slept out in deep snow and intense frost
till the end of January. That month was a profound shock for him: he now
understood the meaning of war. he wrote home his experiences. He escaped
bullets until the last week of the war, but he saw the action of front-line: he was
blown up, concussed and suffered shell-shock.
At Craiglockhart, the psychiatric hospital in Edinburgh, he met Siegfried
Sassoon who inspired him to develop his war poetry. Who had just made his
famous protest. Owen, too, wanted to make his protest, yet he couldn't identify
with pacifists. His principles were locked into conflict. His role as a soldier and
patriot demanded one thing: as a Christian. Knowing and believing Christ's
teaching, with absolute clarity he felt forced to act in complete contradiction to
his convictions. The psychological conflict within him could hardly have been
greater. He was sent back to the trenches in September, 1918 and in October
won the Military Cross by seizing a German machine-gun and using it to kill a
number of Germans. On 4th November he was shot and killed near the village
of Ors. The news of his death reached his parents home as the Armistice bells
were ringing on 11 November.
Dentro de una semana que haba sido transportado a la lnea del frente en un vagn de
ganado y estaba "durmiendo" 70 o 80 metros de un arma pesada que disparaba cada
minuto ms o menos. Pronto fue vadeando millas a lo largo de las trincheras dos metros
de profundidad en el agua. A los pocos das que estaba experimentando ataques de gas y
se horroriz por el hedor de los muertos en descomposicin; su centinela fue cegado, su
empresa, entonces dorma en la nieve profunda e intensa helada hasta el final de enero.
Ese mes fue un shock profundo para l: ahora entenda el significado de la guerra. "El
pueblo de Inglaterra no tienen esperanza. Ellos deben agitar", escribi a casa.
Escap balas hasta la ltima semana de la guerra, pero vio una buena parte de la accin
de primera lnea: fue volado, y sufri una conmocin neurosis de guerra.

Theme: War
Subject: the cruelty of war through the destruction of innocence in a young boy.
Spoken: in a third-person
Warfare: "Arms and the Boy" doesn't describe any actual fighting, but it does give us a
vivid picture of a young soldier who, apparently, is learning the ropes of warfare. He's
young, doesn't know how to use his gun.
Innocent: He's innocent in the sense of "not guilty" (the weapons are the real bad guys
in this poem), but he's also innocent in the sense of inexperienced, young, unaware yet
of the painful realities of war. Governments, weapons, and warfare in general, though,
are doing their best to take away his adolescent innocence.
Death: The boy's bayonet-blade resembles some kind of murderous monster (it is
hungry for "flesh"), his bullets want to bury themselves in the chest of an enemy, and
his cartridge is compared to a mouth of sharp, canine teeth. As if this weren't enough,
the entire last stanza talks about various killing instrumentsclaws, talons, and antlers.
Theme: The title of the poem, "Arms and the Boy," has two partsthe arms and the
boy. Before you say duh!, hear us out. Including both those things in the title helps set
us up for the poem's double focus: the boy soldier and the weapons of warfare that he
must learn to use.
Setting: World War Camp
Personification: By giving the weapons minds of their own, Owen subtly points to the
senselessness of the violence these soldiers experienced. It's as if men were killing each
other simply because that's what their bayonets and bullets wanted them to do.
The use of adjetives or words such us malice, madman, death, famishing
totally contrast with the innocent and naive characteristics that young boy should have.
In this way the poet gains our sympathy for them, as well as arouse our hatred towards
war - a cruel place.

Arms and the Boy

Line
1-2

Metaphor

personification
a blade cant actually
be hungry. compares
the bayonet to a animal

Symbol

3-4

the bayonet-blade is
compared to some type
of starving, murderous,
and carnivorous
animal.

5-6

7-8

Bullets don't have

eyes, and can't
technically be blind,
nor can they "long for"
(desire) something
Speaker describes a
bullet cartridge with
"fine zinc teeth." Teeth
here is a metaphor for
the bullets, which are
sharp and used for
killing

The boy's teeth aren't

sharp. The boy isn't
made for war, however.
He should be "laughing
around an apple.

10
11

12

simile

Claws don't actually

"lurk
Is a metaphor for the
fact that he will never
become a brutish
animal.
God will also not grow
"antlers" on the boy's
head.