by Liz Allen

Created on: August 08, 2011

Wilfred Owen's poem “Futility” is one that he himself placed under the category “Grief.” Owen is considered to be one of the greatest poets of World War I, speaking out openly against its horrors which he experienced first hand in the trenches. “Futility” is a brief poem of fourteen lines divided into two stanzas; it is full of emotion and poignancy. The poem concerns the body of a soldier who is not named, but it appears to be someone that Owen knew personally. 

In the opening line of the poem Owen mentions the sun, which is a recurring feature throughout the fourteen lines. There is a suggestion to move “him” – the soldier who has just died – into the sun in the hope that it might bring him back to life. The atmosphere of the first stanza is quiet and peaceful; Owen uses words such as “Gently” and “whispering.” There is also assonance with a soft “ow” sound in “awoke,” “unsown,” “snow” and “know.” 

The soldier must once have been a farmer, as Owen describes how the sun awoke him “whispering of fields unsown.” It awoke him “even in France,” in other words when he came to fight in the trenches. Line 5, however, marks a change, as the sun always woke the soldier up “Until this morning.” The sun cannot awaken the dead man, and the mention of snow suggests the coldness of death, contrasting with warm life-giving sunshine. As the first stanza comes to a close, Owen personifies the sun as being “kind old,” like a kindly old gentleman. The sun is the only entity that might bring life back to the dead soldier. 

At the start of the second stanza Owen considers the sun's powers. He thinks about how it “wakes the seeds,” making them grow. He goes on to recall how it woke “the clays of a cold star,” in other words how it brought life to the earth. The alliteration here of the hard “c” sound emphasises the sense of coldness before life began. In lines 10 and 11 Owen uses enjambment to link the two lines and extend his ideas. He describes limbs as “so dear-achieved,” giving a sense of the effort that goes into raising a child and caring for them to adulthood. The soldier's body still has its nerves present and is “still warm;” this phrase is separated by a pair of dashes that draw attention to it. Owen wonders

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