The Send-off Analysis

Down the close, darkening lanes they sang their wayTo the siding-shed, And lined the train with faces grimly gay.

Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and sprayAs men's are, dead.

Dull porters watched them, and a casual trampStood staring hard,Sorry to miss them from the upland camp.Then, unmoved, signals nodded, and a lamp Winked to the guard.

So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went.They were not ours:We never heard to which front these were sent.

Nor there if they yet mock what women meantWho gave them flowers.

Shall they return to beatings of great bellsIn wild trainloads?A few, a few, too few for drums and yells,May creep back, silent, to still village wellsUp half-known roads.

Green: gives us a feeling of DOOM. Gray: oxymoronPink: Alliteration Blue: Personification Yellow: Simile Red: Repition

Background   : - This poem was written at Ripon where Owen was in an army camp. - Owen was at Ripon between March and June 1918 - Owen was at a holding camp at Ripon, Yorkshire between being discharged from

Graiglockhart Hospital and returning to the fighting in France. - This poem is about the Young soldiers were being sent off to the war by train

after having had a send-off ceremony. - The soldiers had been pressumed to be sent to the frontlines of the War (« we

never heard to which front these were sent »)

Rhyme Scheme   :

All through the poem, Owen does not use a fixed form but uses inconsistent rhyming. For example : ABAAB ; CDCCD ; EFEEF ; GHGGH. The inconsistant rhyming gives us a feel that the soldiers are having mixed feelings about being sent off to the war. For example, feeling honorable and important going off to fight for their country but also the closer they got to the battle fields the fear and apprehension of what they were to face. Letter   : The words, “down” ; “close” and “darkening lanes” can give the reader a feeling of Doom it can also be an image of Death.“ They sang their way” opposition of what we just read. Trying to hide their fear.

- Owen uses alliteration in : - Verse 2 Siding-shed

- Uses a oxymoron: - Verse 3 Grimly gay

These two words are also opposites meanings, which give us the idea that the soldiers are having complex feelings. They have to seem brave but are not feeling it.

During the third stanza, we can also see that there is a lack of motion (stood, staring and unmoved) that the people mentioned are very still.- The only movement is through the PERSONIFICATION of the signals and the lamp. is a stanza where everything is very still. - Personification: “Signals nodded” and “ a lamp winked to the guard”

Stanza 2 line 1 and stanza 5 line 2: RECURRING THEME OF FLOWES “white with wreath” and “who gave them flowers” Flowers can be associated with funerals. - Using the use of the word “wreath” and the image of the flowers on the soldiers’ breasts conveys the idea of corpses, or perhaps bodies already prepared for Death.

Stanza 6 – verse 2: repition of the word “FEW” draws attention to the fact that out of the thousands of young men setting off to war, only a very small percentage will return.

Stanza 6 – verse 4: “up half-known roads” The experiences of the war had been so horrifying that soldiers don’t even remember places that were once familiar to them before the war.

Mockery in the Last Stanza: “shall they return to beatings of great bells” The soldiers who have survived and who come back after the war don’t want to be known as heroes after the suffering they suffered. (Mentally and physically) - Proved by the 4th line in the last stanza “May creep back, silent to still village wells”