GCSE Literature Poetry Homework
Tasks 2 &3
Task 2
Wilfred Owen used personification in this poem to enhance meaning. He personifies the sun in the final line of the first stanza: If anything might arouse him now The kind old sun will know. The way this is used to enhance meaning is this, during the poem the soldiers attempt to revive an unconscious body of a fellow soldier. They eventually decide to bring him out to the sun as they believe that will be his resurrection. By saying that the old sun will know is personification, because he is giving the sun human like qualities(a brain). This enhances meaning as I believe that the sun is almost a God like or father figure to them, they look to the sun for guidance and help. Before they kept saying that the sun woke him one at home, and in France where they are fighting. I chose my quote because they are know looking up to the sun thinking: O, Father we need your help now.
Task 3
Nature and death can be connected to each other in the poem. I believe that the speaker chooses to unite the terms nature and death because it seems, to me, that they could be cousins in metaphoric terms. I think that death takes its toll naturally, death occurs when it needs to occur. Similarly with nature. Man cannot enforce nature same as he cannot enforce death. However, if both are to be force than there shall be a downside to the action by nature and following, death. In nature there are prey and predators, and this is natural yet this leads onto death. Wilfred Owen shows this when you realised that the sun does not save the unconscious body, because nature cannot be reasoned with. Furthermore, this leads onto the person’s death.
