Futility

Wilfred Owen

Futility (noun)

1. pointlessness – a lack of usefulness or effectiveness

2. pointless action - an action that has no use, purpose or effect

The story of the poem

• Written in 1918. About this time Owen categorised his poems, FUTILITY coming under the heading "Grief".

• The front line on a bright winter morning. A soldier has recently died though we don't know precisely how or when. Owen appears to have known him and something of his background.

• He ponders nature's power to create life, setting it against the futility of death.

• The problem Owen faces in Futility is how to reconcile the miracle of creation with the evil of death and waste.

• Owen wonders ‘what is the point?’…

http://www.solarnavigator.net/world_war_two.htm

Quotes + this shows…

• The sun is personified throughout the poem – select lines where this happens. (C)

Language analysis List the connotations of

these words… (B)

• Gently

• Kind

• Warm

• Cold

• Sunbeam

Meaning and Structure (A)

• What does the final line of the poem suggest?

• The poem has three rhetorical questions at the end. Why?

• Why did Owen write this poem?

The poem makes us think about…

• Life – how it is created

• Nature – how the sun creates all life on earth

• Death – how it ultimately makes life futile