Owen's poetry discernible purpose is to convey the destructive capacity of war and its futility. The injustice of war is incorporated into his verse and the ability to communicate his purpose successfully to the reader is through his style and technique.
The horror and pity of war is constant and recurring in all poems. It is portrayed most especially due to the powerful and vigorous images. One such image can be found in 'The Show' where Owen describes soldiers as,'cratered like the moon with hollow woe,And pitted with great pocks and scabs of plagues.'Some poems more than others, are heavily loaded with such images such as, 'Dulce et Decorum est' and 'The Sentry'. In 'The Last Laugh', other than imagery, Owen uses his style and technique more efficiently to convey the pity and disgust of war. This is done by incorporating morbidity and black humour to further enrich the suffering of the soldiers.
English: Portrait of Wilfred Owen, found in a coll...
One of many, many graveyards in the Somme battlefi...
Owens Park Tower and Beetham Tower from BurnageThe horror and pity of war bear on its futility and vice versa therefore the above sustains the futility of war. This concept is furthermore conjoined with the futility of human life as well as values. 'Futility' is one such poem exhibiting these ideas. Owen clearly exhibits his feelings and thoughts about the bitterness of youth being cut short, rhetorically asking with a mocking tone,'Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sidesFull-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?Was it for this the clay grew tall?'Owen shows the futility of human life even by portraying the degradation of the soldiers, 'bodies without numbers', 'scum'. Moreover, in 'The Show' the soldiers are dehumanized, depicted as worms in a cannibalistic image. The poet expands the concept of futility to the extent of values. The truths become lies, death takes form in life and life takes form in death, and religious values are...