Through the entire poem, we notice that the author, Wilfred Owen, is an anti-war person. He describes some situations he was in and shows us how war is and what are the soldiers facing in their time there: confusion, desperation and dealing with death everyday.
In the first segment of the poem, it is described to us what the soldiers are and the difficulty of their situation. From the beginning we are conveyed their exhaustion, how tired they are, where they even get to a point when "men marched asleep" and where they are "drunk with fatigue". But, this shows to us that despite their tiredness, they continue moving, to fight for their country and to accomplish their task. -
We also get to know that these men are aware of their situation and that they even regret of being there, as they "cursed through sludge", they make us think that they are having second thoughts about their decision of being part of the army.
English: Portrait of Wilfred Owen, found in a coll...
One of many, many graveyards in the Somme battlefi...
United StatesNow that they are there, in the middle of a battle, it's a totally different view. Specially, if you never know what's going to happen next: you could be dead the next weak, day, or minute. And this is what happens here, because of the "Five-Nines that dropped behind"
In the second segment of the poem, all this chaos and desperation is conveyed to us, as Owen show us how they were attacked and how they react to this. We can find that the soldiers are just trying to get out from where the attack is, and to quickly run away from the gas. They just fit their "clumsy helmets" and protect themselves. Their poor protecting conditions, as we can know from the helmet's example, make the whole situation worse. And beneath it all,