Ben Schofield War Literature

How do Owen and Faulks depict the cost of War on its Participants and its Victims?

In this essay I hope to give evidence to prove the thesis that, Faulks and Owen depict a bleak large cost of war, emphasising the isolation of the subjects. I shall be basing this thesis on the pieces ‘Disabled’ by Wilfred Owen and ‘The Last Night’ taken from ‘Charlotte Gray’ by Sebastian Faulks.

Firstly both pieces use juxtaposition as an effective tool in drawing the reader in and emphasising the characters perspective, or the surrounding back story.

In ‘Disabled’ Owen focuses on the man’s past to create a powerful juxtaposition with his bleak present. He uses the second stanza to remind the reader of what once was, and therefore what might have still been, had it not been for his deformation. Furthermore it shows up the cost of war taken from the nameless man when coupled with his physical description: ‘Legless, sewn short at elbow’ taken from the first stanza. This tells the reader he is missing both legs and at least one arm from the elbow down. The significance of this though is how it is done in a manner of fact way; Owen does not want us to pity him. The second stanza talks of how the girls ‘touch him now like some queer disease.’ Perhaps Owen is talking of how he is now seen as inhuman, ‘diseased’ as the text says.

Likewise Faulks uses juxtaposition in to reinforce a sense of how they are all being treated like animals. This is shown in the third paragraph: ‘the soft bloom of his cheek laid, uncaring, in the dung.’ From this we can note that the writer is emphasising the loss of youth in his cheek; ‘bloom’ can also be interpreted as a suggestion of his life. Faulks does seem to want us to draw a comparison between the two. These two things, his youth and his life, laid ‘uncaring’ in the dung. Obviously this shows a juxtaposition made purposefully by the author to emphasise the uncaring perpetuators of this situation. Those that are imposing this cost upon the young child.

Importantly, there is a lot of animalistic, de-humanising imagery telling the reader about the lost humanity in ‘Disabled’ and ‘The Last Night’.

Ben Schofield War Literature

It could be said that the very first line of ‘The Last Night’ creates an effect of these people being treated as animals. “André was lying on the floor” The reader can take from this a sense of how the subject is being dehumanised. Faulks gives him a name to first connect with the reader and then, by telling us that he was lying on the floor, creates a sharp contrast of humanity and inhumane conditions. By leaving the guards or captors unnamed and unmentioned he removes a whole dimension from the piece. Leaving just the Jewish perspective; leaving the subjects distanced, isolated and animalised.

On a similar tone in ‘Disabled’ Owen devolves his subject describing him as a broken man, as not whole. Taken from the first stanza, “He sat in a wheeled chair waiting for dark,” all throughout the poem Owen refers to him with this impersonal pronoun “he,” therefore degrading, detaching and isolating this unknown, damaged man. “He,” is described in such physical detail blandly to give a sense of how he is just a shell of a man. Taken from the first stanza: “And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,” in the quotation the dissonant guttural g is alliterated. This dehumanising imagery animalises him like André from ‘The Last Night’.

In comparison of the two pieces semantic field plays a part in the imagery of the two writers, reinforcing isolation and what has been taken from the subjects by war.

Undoubtedly the semantic field of the end of the third and beginning of the fourth stanzas from ‘Disabled’ is one of sport. “The hot race”, “matches”, “football” and “carried shoulder high” are all examples of this semantic field. I believe Owen wanted to emphasise the disability by showing what he used to do and obviously now can’t. From this it can also be taken that Owen was making a comment on Jessie Pope’s view of war as a game. Her propaganda poetry especially “Who’s For the Game” would have been inflammatory for anyone who had fought in the trenches during World War One. In the same section in the piece when the unnamed soldier received a sporting injury he was proud. The reader can see from this a heavy sense of irony and contrast.

Likewise in Faulks’ piece the semantic field in the first paragraph is one emphasising loss and isolation. Examples of this are “Leave”, “throw”, “remembered” and “final”. It could be said that Faulks used this semantic field to make the reader think about what this war has taken from the subject.

Ben Schofield War Literature

The word “survived,” also from the first stanza, may also have been used by the writer to emphasise how close to death the subjects are. In the second paragraph Faulks shows how isolated and cut off from their families these children are. “A woman came with a sandwich for each child to take on the journey [....] One of the older boys embraced her in his gratitude,” We can take from that how the boy has been taken away from his family and mother and now he is seeking a maternal figure.

Weighing up the evidence we can see that Sebastian Faulks and Wilfred Owen do depict a personally isolating and large physical cost on the participants and victims of war. While one served England in the First World War and the other was born into a time of peace both perceived and showed this cost in their literature.