Futility--by Wilfred Owen 1893-1918, written in 1918

                                      Wilfred Owen 1893-1918
                           

Move him into the sun -
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke 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?

                            Textual Analysis

1. Substance of the Poem ‘Futility’.

Wilfred Owens’s works revolve around war and the pity of war. The poem ‘Futility’ expresses the uselessness of creation of life on earth. The death of a young soldier portrayed in the poem comes to stand for the fruitlessness of war itself and the loss of lives caused by it.

Owen in this poem portrays a soldier who came of a peasant family. There at home he was woken up by his unsown field  that seemed to tell him of his responsibility to cultivate the land.

2. What can you say about the background of the dead soldier?

The soldier came of a peasant family in England. Being a peasant himself he showed traits customary of a peasant even in France where he fought and died.

3. How in the first two lines did the poet personify the sun in regard to the dead soldier?

The death of the young soldier was sudden and painful for the poet. He found it difficult to accept the reality of such a gruesome death of a fellow soldier. So he vainly imagined that the touch of the sun, which once gave him life, could revive him again; this, he knew wouldn’t happen.

4. What impression does the author suggest by ‘until this morning and snow...’?

Before being taken to war, the soldier was a farmer. So even in France where he was fighting, he showed the habits of a farmer. He always woke up in the morning until the day he was killed suddenly. There was a snowfall going at that time and he lay dead on the snow.

These two lines strongly suggest how alien the life of a soldier was to the boy and how deeply he loved his profession i.e. farming.

5. How have the two words—‘whispering’ and ‘woke’—been used?  What does it inform us regarding the soldier?

The poet has personified the field which the soldier once tilled. Its whispering signifies the dedication of the soldier to his profession i.e. farming to which he was always responsible.

So he woke up every morning to attend to his field. The boy was a simple villager who was growing up to his responsibilities as a farmer.

6.  What state of mind does the poet reflect from the last two lines of the first stanza?

By the last two lines of the first stanza, the poet has tried to emphasise upon the helplessness of man before death. He stressed that if there were a greater force like God other than the sun, HE would also fail at such a moment.

 He reflected in this way because there was no way out to bring the dead soldier back to life.

7. What do you mean by ‘the seeds’ and ‘the clays of a cold star’? What does the change of tense in the first two lines of the second stanza indicate?

‘The seeds’ simply signifies common seeds used to sow in fields.

‘The clays of the cold star’ indicates human being after the Bible that says God created man out of clay.  Since the earth is also a part of the sun, it has been called ‘cold star’ by the poet.

 The first present tense—‘wakes’ indicates continuous natural phenomenon. The past tense—‘woke’     indicates how the soldier was brought to life on earth, i.e. his birth.

 Sun being the ultimate source of life and energy has been personified as life giver.

8. Substantiate the phrase ‘limbs so dear achieved’.

'Limbs so dear achieved’ refers to the pride and fulfilment on the part of the soldier’s parents, who might have made many sacrifices for their son and painstakingly waited for the day to see him full-grown and robust.

9. Explain the irony in the line—‘full nerved, still warm...too hard to stir?’

Here the poet, Owen, disappointingly wonders at the sudden death of the soldier against his parents` painstaking anticipation and care in bringing him up to a young and robust man.

He is agonised and tormented by the thought that what it takes so long a time to create and nurture is so fragile before death.

10. Explain the sense of Futility as reflected from the last three lines.

 The poet out of shock and disappointment at the useless carnage was filled with a sense of futility in

             regard to all that is living. At one side he underlined the slow process of life waking up to a

             full-fledged civilisation whereas at the other he was equally pained at the fragility of human life

             in the hands of man itself.   

 He is appalled at the attitude of man in regard to life and survival.

11. Explain the attitude of the poet towards war. / The title of the Poem.

Poet, Wilfred Owen, though volunteered in the First World War, rejected the accepted romanticism

wars have always been associated with.

The subject of his poetry is war and the pity of war. Though he fought bravely and died for a cause—what  he thought sublime—he left for mankind a lesson of immense agony and indignation of human life in the name of patriotism and sacrifice.

             He is embittered at this foolish bloodshed that brings nothing but death, deprivation and suffering.

12. How has the personification of the sun helped the poet to evoke the sense of futility?

Wilfred Owens’s works revolve around war and the pity of war. The poem ‘Futility’ expresses the uselessness of creation of life on earth. The death of a young soldier portrayed in the poem comes to stand for the fruitlessness of war itself and the loss of lives caused by it.

With the personification of sun, the poet has tried to emphasise upon the helplessness of man before death. He stressed that if there were a greater force like God other than the sun, HE would also fail at such a moment.

Please feel free to ask for any help related to this Poem. Leave your comment and I will catch up with you and try to attend as early as possible.