And some cease feeling, Even themselves or for themselves.

Discuss how Owen communicates soldiers emotion in Insensibility in your answer, explore the effects of language, imagery and verse form, and consider how this poem relates to other poems by Owen that you have studied. Insensibility was written in March 1918 while Wilfred Owen was at Ripon. This poem emphasises the various forms of insensibility and strongly suggests that the only soldiers who can die happy are those who have become immune to the war and no longer have feeling towards their fellow men. They have no sympathy for those who suffered and have become a stranger to reality. Wilfred Owen shows that even though they feel physical pain, they have no feeling inside themselves. This poem describes the experience of soldiers in the trenches and how lifeless they have become. The poet shows this through the user of language, imagery and verse forms. Firstly, the poem starts with the use of irony, implying that the soldiers have become insensitive. The soldiers are not happy that they are not killed; they dont even have any sympathy or feeling left in them, so they are better of being killed than living in such devastating condition. The word cold reinforces that the soldiers lack feeling. This also implies that the soldiers have been at the front far too long and have become insensitive to their surroundings. In the first stanza, Owen uses oxymoron to illustrate how lifeless the soldiers have become, for example veins are blood vessels which carry blood towards the heart, but the soldiers have become cold which show that they are not functioning properly and are permanently damaged. Veins has also been used in Disabled, which also reinforces the same idea that the soldiers have become motionless, Veins ran dry. Owen says that the front line withers, which implies that the plants in the trenches are shrivelling and dying, but Owen reminds the reader that this is not the case, because it is the soldiers who are dying and not the flowers. Owen acknowledges that although the soldiers have become unconscious to their surroundings, the poet and the readers are tearful to what had happened to the soldiers. Nevertheless, the word fooling suggests that its pointless as it wouldnt change anything. This reflects to Owens feeling about young soldiers being recruited. The word fool is also been seen in The Last Laugh, mocking the soldiers who are leisurely gestured. The use of metaphor also reinforces Owens feeling of poets and young soldiers who glamorise war, when they havent experienced the real nature of war such as the poet Rupert Brooke. Owen ends the stanza, in the same way as he does in the poem Exposure. Longer but nothing happens, this implies that the soldiers lack sentiment for others and their self. The second stanza shows that the soldiers have ceased feeling but dullness still remains. This implies that the soldiers havent just lost feeling to their surroundings but mostly of themselves. The soldiers would go through the same fear of being shelled and this resulted to low spirits and boredom. Owen gives the shells a human quality- as though they deliberately choose their victims. This shows that for someone to be well-being is as much a matter of luck or destiny or preparedness. Owen continues in describing how Chance decides such matters, thus comparing such decisions with a mathematical equation implying that trying to count up the mens wages is much more difficult than the addition required by chance. Men enlisted during this time were often referred to as taking the Kings shilling. In the final line of this verse, Owen suggests that the reason that the arithmetic of the dead is so easy is that no one bothers to keep count anyway; soldiers have been destroyed, without anyone being able to record the number of casualty. The second verse comments on the selfesteem at the front, also shows that there is no one who cares; it is not just the men at the front have become insensitive- everyone has. Owen repeats the word happy to show the disillusionment of reality but also the men whose imaginations have been weakened to the point where all they do is function, rather than living; they

carry out their duties, but nothing more. The soldiers imagination was to be out by Christmas, but this illusion didnt last long as the soldiers have become lifeless and insensitive by their fear of being shelled. The soldiers are surrounded by red and rid, the use of half- rhymes reinforces the death of soldiers and how soldiers are surrounded by death and blood, but they still remain cold and unaware. The use of assonance of the O echoes the coldness of the poem and bitter and resentfulness of the soldiers experience during the first World War. Their small-drawn hearts denote a sketched personality, made incomplete by their lack of feeling or emotion. However, despite the hell of battle, the soldiers have become hardened to the point where they feel absolutely nothing and can even laugh among the dying of their fellow soldiers and their own experience of death. This paints an even bitterer picture than the previous two. Not only have the men become all insensitive, they lost their physical feeling; their knowing; and care for nothing. The next stanza describes the contentment of the men who left and now remain without any notion. Owen later on tells us about the men who are not trained to plan ahead. These men are the ranks, rather than the officers and NCOs, who would have undergone a thorough training and have had greater experience, thus enabling them to think for themselves, rather than merely following orders. Soldiers generally would sing to overcome their fright and try to forget the death of their fellow soldiers; however what they sang was nothing, as dusk approaches. Dusk is traditionally associated with death, but in war poetry is generally less feared than dawn. But they know that dusk always follows in a relentless trend which night follows day. The final verse describes the last category of insensible people were they have become stones. This implies that the soldiers are cold and unfeeling; they have become dehumanised by their experience of war. The final line in this poem shows that, regardless of the attitudes of these dullards, the mourning will never end; crying will never end. This poem is a very sad poem which the title immediately sets the scene, in telling us the main theme running in the poem- insensibility of various types of people. Owen reinforced this verse by verse, but also provides a reason why they have become insensitive to the war, because they are either protecting themselves or are too young and inexperienced to know otherwise. Owen criticised the nature of war and how many soldiers have become lifeless. The form of this poem is irregular; not only are the line and verse lengths uneven, but the rhyming pattern too. Owen uses many pararhyme such as shelling shilling, red rid and stuns and stones. This irregularity allows the reader to concentrate more on the words and its meaning. The sound of the m word in mourns...man...immune creates a greater concentration in the mind of the reader. Overall, the poem strongly reinforces the insensitive and lifeless the soldiers have become in the war. This is one the most powerful and moving poems Owen has written to paint a vivid picture of the trenches and death, while reminding the reader how pointless each death is. Unlike his poem Dulce et Decorum Est, which he had written while at Craiglockhart and directly influenced of Siegfried Sassoon, Insensibility is a poem which is written more thoughtful and backward-looking. As a whole, the poem is successful in putting across its main theme- various forms of insensibility.