This Resource is ‘A Brief Synopsis’ only for Mainstream English Year 11 Students studying ‘The Penelopiad’ by Margaret Atwood: AOS1 Reading & Exploring Texts and AOS2 Crafting Texts Year 11 in the 2023 VCE Curriculum

Historical Context

While ‘The Penelopiad’ is a postmodern, feminist short novel (novella) it is a work of narrative fiction with a story and plot, characters and settings and offers insight into human relationships as well as exploring moral, social and political issues.  The most significant element in Atwood’s narrative is that she retells Homer’s myth of the Odyssey enabling various interpretations and questions to what led to the hanging of the Maids and what was Penelope really up to?  By leaving Homer’s myth of Greece in 700 BCE open to reinterpretation, Atwood suggests that there is not one single undisputed truth in the interpretation.  Atwood addresses social and cultural issues of Ancient Greece within the framework of Homer’s myth but she assigns new emphasis to female protagonists like Penelope who have to fight for self and survival in a society ruled by men. 

Style

‘The Penelopiad’ is told by Penelope adopting 1^st person narrative, from the Underworld, called Hades in Ancient Greek mythology, where she has been for several thousand years.  Shown through Penelope’s eyes, Atwood creates a form of conversational dramatic monologue during which Penelope tells her side of the story as she waits the 20 years for Odysseus to return from the Trojan Wars.  She presents a kind of tell-all tale of her recount of events that she will “spin a thread of my own” (p.4) addressing 21^st century readers in a more modern narrative style that is often colloquial.  Penelope uses blunt and straightforward language reclaiming her humanity and rejecting Homer’s account of her.  The tone is often ironic and humorous and is at odds with the patriarchal epic poems of Ancient Greek mythology.  She urges women “Don’t follow my example, I want to scream in your ears” (p.2).  At times Penelope uses quite extreme slang when describing Helen of Troy calling her a “septic bitch” (p.131) in order to reinforce the view of Helen as the main cause of all Penelope’s problems.  Through the use of everyday vernacular, Atwood mocks the lofty language of the Odyssey and claims the right for alternative voices to be heard.

Feminist Literature

‘The Penelopiad’ can be considered feminist literature of the 21^st century as Atwood takes women from the Odyssey and puts them into a new framework where the narrator Penelope and other female voices, once suppressed by Homer, become the voices heard.  Penelope is a capable modern woman, simultaneously trying to cover all roles while Odysseus is away.  She clearly does more than weeping and weaving.  She raises Telemachus as a single mother, manages Odysseus’ estates and negotiates the politics of the household and the onslaught from the Suitors.  Atwood shows Penelope resisting patriarchal dominance and oppression starting from when her father tries to drown her, until we meet her looking back on her life from the Underworld.  We see the focus on the way Penelope creates and extends her role of patient wife and mother to the other roles she defines.  The text addresses the feminist ideology which asks that “women be free to define themselves, instead of having their identity defined for them”.

Message of Author – Why did Margaret Atwood write The Penelopiad?

As Atwood admits, Penelope has been “in general somewhat neglected for the very simple reason that in the Odyssey she does weaving, waiting, sleeping and crying to show how much she cares that Odysseus isn’t there, how beleaguered she feels, and how lost and alone and unhappy she is.”  Certainly, Atwood could have written about murderous Clytemnestra or scandalous Helen, but she decided to take Penelope, a mythical, dutiful doormat and make her fly.  But Atwood conceded that there was much more to Penelope and she wanted to question Homer’s version of her.  For Atwood, such ancient myths can still tell us living truths. 

Atwood said that Penelope “Had a whole lifetime of keeping her mouth shut.  Now that she’s dead, she doesn’t have to do that anymore, because nothing is at stake.  It’s like those tell-all’s that people do at the end of their lives.”  Atwood also makes her put-upon heroine a shrewd estate manager and stand-in ruler, running the dirt-poor “goat-strewn rock” of Ithaca while the big boys play away from home.  “If you come to think of it, she must have been doing a lot more than she’s shown as doing in the Odyssey, because there’s nobody else in charge of the outfit.  She must have been a much more active, practical person than she’s shown as being.”  Nobody’s fool, Atwood’s Penelope sees through the returning Odysseus’s disguises and shares a flair for fibs and ruses with her errant husband. “There are two ways of fending things off if you don’t want them to happen,” Atwood explains. “One is by force – which is not available to her. The other is by guile.  So, she has to use guile.  And that is also Odysseus’s big stock-in-trade. When in doubt, lie – but lie well.”

Interview of Margaret Atwood by Boyd Tonkin “Margaret Atwood: A personal odyssey and how she rewrote Homer”. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/margaret-atwood-a-personal-odyssey-and-how-she-rewrote-homer-322675.html

The 12 Maids Perspective & Importance

Atwood intersperses Penelope’s narrative with performances from the 12 hanged maids, in 11 of the 24 chapters, who together form ‘The Chorus Line’ to comment on the action and give background from their perspective.  The maids perform in a variety of genres such as songs, recitations, dance, an idyll, a sea shanty, ballad, love story, mock heroic drama, an envoi, an anthropological lecture and a farce of a trial of Odysseus.  The narratives of the maids are also accompanied by stage directions to increase the sense of dramatic performance.  The maids lament the double standards throughout their chorus breaks, constantly reminding the reader or audience of the tragedy that happened.

The importance of the maid’s narrative is to address the treatment of marginalised women in a patriarchal society and Atwood’s need to give powerless women a voice not heard in the history of society or Greek mythology.  The maids continue to demand answers ‘Why did you murder us?’ (p. 193) and Atwood gives them the final word in the novella with a short poem, ‘Envoi’, where they again state ‘it was not fair’ (p. 195).  Atwood emphasises the injustice of silencing and marginalising women and suggests that women will keep on calling out about it.

Themes & Key Concepts – Consider these Ideas for Connections with your Personal Response or Crafting Texts Response

• Truth and Lies

Penelope’s story uncovers lies and innuendos as she takes the unchallenged position of narrator to tell the “plain truth” (p.139) so that deception is attributed by her only from Odysseus.  She says she knew Odysseus was “tricky” (p.2) but it seems that both Penelope and Odysseus use lies and deception to cleverly achieve their aims.  Penelope’s revelation of herself as an equal liar to Odysseus casts into doubt her insistence that she has nothing to do with the hanging of the Maids and does not know about it until it is too late.  It brings into question other matters like her true relationship with the Suitors and her activities when Odysseus is away.  Also, as the Maids call out insults to Odysseus concerning their treatment and their pledge to follow him wherever he goes, they taunt him about their murder, clearly referring to him as a careful, clever liar.  They make reference to Odysseus being a “grandson of thieves and liars” (p.191) because of the story involving the boar hunting with his grandfather, Autolycus.  The questions posed by this probable deceit are suggested by Penelope in the chapter of “The Scar” (p.47).  It appears that the clever lies told by both Penelope and Odysseus are used to manipulate others, to get what they want or just simply to survive.

• Personal Challenge

Penelope starts her tale by retelling a story from her childhood.  She is thrown into the sea by her father, but is saved by a flock of purple-striped ducks.  Clearly this episode and its retelling has a profound impact on Penelope and leaves her with the personal challenge of dealing with her reserved personality and learning to manage her innate mistrust of others.  So, unlike her cousin Helen of Troy, who is confident and superficial, Penelope’s personality is more inward-focused.  This could also account for why she has to much trouble fitting in to palace life in Ithaca and resorts to her own abilities to “learn from scratch” (p.87).  Even though Penelope is only 15 when she is married to Odysseus, she is willing to start a new life with Odysseus so she can put her past life as princess of Sparta and her dysfunctional family life behind her.  Yet her personal challenges are broad and wide-reaching in Ithaca when Odysseus is away for so many years, she must rely on her own determination to succeed against the odds.  Despite much weeping and weaving she finds the strength to handle court politics and running the estates belonging to Odysseus.  In her personal challenges she applies her mother’s advice “If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it” (p.43).

• Power

Penelope struggles with a lack of power, firstly as a child in Sparta, then when she is won in a marriage contest by Odysseus and later in Ithaca with Eurycleia and Anticlea.  There are fatal consequences when the powerful exert their power and we see two sides to Penelope, the powerful and the powerless.  The Maid’s lack of power is evident in the novella and they express this in “Kiddie Mourn, A Lament by the Maids” (pp.13-15).  Later they seek justice for the injustices they have faced, including their early and unnatural death by putting their case before a modern court.  However, even in that setting they lack the power for a resolution that will see Odysseus face his crimes. 

In ‘The Penelopiad’, physical power is embodied in Odysseus who is the self-proclaimed superhuman who had defeated the Trojans and established his political power in battle.  More importantly is that power is explicitly in the hands of men in Greece who consolidate and legitimise power physically, politically and economically over women.  Odysseus is free to kill Penelope for infidelity and to slaughter the Suitors and the Maids.  Likewise, Icarius is at liberty to drown his infant daughter or act in a drunken and insulting manner at Penelope’s wedding because “He was king” (p.41). 

‘The Penelopiad’ explores ways in which male power affects different groups of women as a result of class discrimination.  For instance, although Penelope is traded “like a package of meat” (p.39) between her father and her husband, as a noblewoman she still has far more power than her Maids.  The Maids are Odysseus’ property to the point that he is considered to have acted “within his rights” in hanging them.  In fact, their rape is judged as a crime against them as they had sex without his permission (p.151). 

Penelope’s “tale-telling” (p.4) is an attempt to seize some power by contradicting the traditional myth that depicts her as the stereotypical faithful wife.  Similarly, the Maids demand the right to tell their own version of events and thus achieve a measure of the power that was denied to their sex and class.

• Responsibility

A key theme is responsibility; especially how Odysseus sees his responsibility in the tale, as Penelope does not give him the right of reply to accusations made against him.  Although Atwood indirectly refers to the puzzle concerning what leads to the hanging of the Maids in The Odyssey, in her retelling of the tale she states clearly that the story “doesn’t hold water” (p.xv).  She suggests that whoever is directly responsible might be important in her story with its new emphases.  Atwood indicates that Penelope is “haunted” (p.xv) by the death of the hanged Maids and we are told of her great affection for them.  On the surface it appears that the responsibility lies with Odysseus however, it is clearly much more complicated.  Atwood leaves doubt in the mind of the reader despite the fact that the Maids hold fast in their accusation against Odysseus for their murder.  Perhaps Penelope’s responsibility is to put a stop to being “A stick used to beat other women with” (p.2) as she wanted to set the record straight.  Yet Penelope pleads ignorance about the killing of the Maids.  Nevertheless, responsibility weighs on Penelope in outward statements and inner thoughts, which allows readers to raise questions of who is really responsible for the Maids killings.

• Identity

‘The Penelopiad’ explores notions of identity and the ways in which it is tied to physical appearance, self-perception and the expectations of others.  Physical appearance with Helen’s beauty sets the standard of physical perfection by which other women (such as Penelope) judge themselves (p.35).  The text suggests that beauty can grant women power; in Helen’s case, agelessness as well, invests her with enormous power over men.  Beauty is also linked with youth and the capacity to bear children (especially sons) to ensure the continuation of patriarchal power. 

A sense of self can also be shaped by other’s perceptions and expectations leading people to question who they are.  This is clear as Penelope fails to meet her mother in law’s expectations of a suitable wife for Odysseus (p.62) and the idea he might be “thinking about Helen” (p.64) increases her insecurity.  Odysseus cheats if the odds are against him in order to substantiate his heroic status (p.31), he exaggerates stories of his heroism, yet his public identity as a hero is consolidated by his plausible stories that inevitably become “true” (p.2).

• Gender Roles

The text explores ideas about being a woman with socially constructed notions of femininity and gender and also highlights the complexities of womanhood in a 21^st century post-feminist context.  The good mother characteristics of a nurturing, gentle and protective quality with feminine sensibility is shown in Penelope when she gives birth to Telemachus as she is “glad” to have produced a son, gratified that Odysseus is “pleased” with her (p.64) and feels fulfilled by her maternal role.  Penelope’s observation that “a mother’s life is sacred” (p.111) reveals the high value society places on nurturing motherhood and the high expectations placed upon mothers. 

Yet toxic mothers in law with their reputed hostility to daughters in law is shown by Anticleia who Penelope described as a “prune-mouthed” woman (p.60) who wrinkles up “like drying mud” (p.85).  Atwood exploits these stereotypes for the comic or dramatic purpose in the text but Penelope challenges her role by showing the importance of spinning a threat of one’s own (p.4). 

Being a wife in Ancient Greece in a patriarchal society meant being a possession like Penelope being handed over like “a package of meat” (p.39) in a bargain struck between powerful men.  Penelope is the essence of submissiveness and obedience and only after her death she warns other women that following her example will subjugate and silence them.

• Storytelling & the Power of Narrative

‘The Penelopiad’ demonstrates the power of storytelling and the liberating power of taking ownership of one’s own story.  Penelope’s spinning of her own “thread” (p.4) disputes Homer’s idealised version of her in the Odyssey so that she is able to complicate the accepted one-dimensional image of her as a dutiful wife and emphasise to the reader her considerable intelligence and resilience.  Rewriting of the Odyssey is empowering for Penelope as she can finally negate the many stories about her that she would “prefer not to hear” (p.3).  Her authorial control frees her from the burden of being a legend (pp.143-5) and allows her to warn other women not to follow the example she set of keeping her “mouth shut” (p.3).

All Resources created by englishtutorlessons.com.au Online Tutoring using Zoom for Mainstream English Students in the Victorian Curriculum

This Resource is for students in Year 11 studying’Minfields & Miniskirts’ & ‘Wilfred Owen War Poems’ in the Victorian VCE Curriculum

Structure of the Play/ Plot / Set / Music / Title Symbols / Motifs

Begins with the sounds in the distance of military drums on an Anzac Day march in 1980’s, where the women meet, and ends to the sound of the military band at an Anzac Day march at the end of the play.  The marches celebration of returned soldiers is a time of mixed emotions of joy and sadness for the characters.  Significantly, the play comes full circle at the end with the return to the march and the return of the women to Australia which has brought them a new level of understanding about their experiences in Vietnam.  The link to the song at the end of the play is Joni Mitchell’s ‘The Circle Game’ as all the women sing together of their lives going ‘round and round’ after their ‘life altering experience’ in Vietnam.

The play is organised into 11 scenes.  While each scene has a particular theme that joins the stories of the 5 women together, each of the women’s stories has a quality that makes it distinct from the other character’s stories.  The plot is carried by the 5 characters, so that plot and character are very closely related.  While there is no direct interaction between the characters on stage or any dialogues between them, we do see them join in singing 1960’s songs together, for example, Scene 2 ‘Off to War’ Sandy, Eve, Kathy & Ruth sing together ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’.

O’Connell has drafted the script in such a way as to imply clear links and shifts in perspective between the characters, so that different points of view are cast on the same events.  He has also set the monologues within a theatrical choreography of the stage space, to add a sense of realism to the scenes, which otherwise consist solely of the 5 spoken monologues.  The play agglomerates the anecdotes of each of the women into a group narrative that typifies the particular scene in which it occurs.  The effect of this grouping is to bring the women’s stories together, even as they have their key points of difference.

The set of the play is a mash up of ancient Vietnamese, colonial French style and modern American capitalism ‘Coca Cola’ street furniture and the physical environment of Vietnam.  The opening set includes a silk stage curtain with a bleached-out handwritten message celebrating the Australian women who went to Vietnam.  The audience also hear music from famous Vietnam War era films allowing them to be drawn into the world of Vietnam.  Even though the women had different backgrounds, as much as their experiences, they have one thing in common, which is explored poignantly in the final sentence: ‘Vietnam transformed their lives and haunted their memories’.

The title of the play is an illusion to 2 deeper thematic concerns that rule life – sex and death.  The ‘miniskirts’ are a symbol of liberated female sexuality and ‘minefields’ are a symbol of maiming, disfigurement and death.  These 2 elements were in evidence during the Vietnam War.  The young soldiers were in their 20’s and sexually virile but many came back with their bodies and minds broken and shattered or in body bags as 521 Australians died.  All women return from Vietnam profoundly changed by their experiences.  Helicopters form a dominant motif that are heard constantly hovering in the background of the play to remind the audience of the women’s memories of the war.

Characters

Margaret             The Vet’s wife – the first to speak in the play and she is both the outsider of the group of 5, and the one who comes closest to experiencing the violence of the Vietnam War directly in her own home. Her husband James brings back the Vietnam War with him, in fact he is still fighting the war as he steps through the front door and continues fighting the war until the day he commits suicide by gassing himself to death in the car.  Margaret represents many thousands of wives who had to nurse their veteran husbands who returned from seeing action in Vietnam with profound psychological disturbances.

Sandy                    The entertainer – Sandy’s motivation for going to Vietnam is to exploit the captive audience she will find there, as she entertains the troops as one of the Velveteens.  She is attracted by the glitz and glamour of being a show-girl, strutting up on stage in her pink feathers, and performing in front of hordes of GI’s and so we recognise early on in the play that Sandy enjoys being the centre of attention.  Her life in Vietnam is a step-up from performing on stage ‘in my miniskirt’ in some unheard of ‘suburban club’ and her socio-economic background propels her towards Vietnam as her options and possibilities for success in Australia are severely limited.

Kathy                    The nurse – Kathy comes out of a military family and volunteering for service in Vietnam is a natural thing for her to do, war service is in her DNA.  Her father is a man of some influence and she is able to communicate back to him the kinds of conditions she is experiencing on the front-line hospital and field work, and the appalling lack of equipment.  She is proud to be serving, but she also becomes disillusioned fairly quickly or has a reality check realising the supposed enemy soldiers are no better or no worse than her own side and resolves to treat everyone equally.

Eve                         The volunteer – Eve heralds from a devoutly Christian family and feels it her mission to volunteer herself to those suffering in the war.  She leaves with her parents’ blessing but throughout proves to be a perceptive observer of both other people and herself.  She realises fairly soon that in her experience ‘It was hard to believe in my God in Vietnam’ and understands the moment she comes in to land, upon seeing an old man ploughing his paddy field as an aerial battle was raging around him, that the Vietnam War could never be won.  This perception of the nature of things was lost on the politicians and military men conducting the war.

Ruth                      The journalist – Ruth comes to Vietnam as a dare by a fellow journalist but the urge behind her decision is motivated also by her desire for excitement and adventure beyond editing the women’s pages of the local tabloid.  We realise that Ruth is in some ways equally exploitative of the new situation, as she tries to get ‘an in’ with the locals and uses her overt physical features to get herself invited to parties.  While in Vietnam the injuries and deaths that surround her do not move her beyond wearing the Star of David that her Green Beret soldier husband-to-be wore before his death.  While she admits the Vietnam War made her feel ‘alive’ she does not gain any deeper perception about herself as a result.

Themes

Social content of the Vietnam War                          

Freedom to kill at random / no conscience

Counter culture of 1960’s drugs                                

Freedom to exploit or harm others

Psychological effects of war                                       

PTSD / psychotic effect of war

Women exploited / rape / no moral power          

Language & power / feelings

Noble ideal vs corrupted ideal of war                     

South East Asia reality of Communist domino effect

Plot Outline

Scene 1: Prologue                           The opening scene is set at an Anzac Day march and the 5 women give us a snippet of the stories that are about to be told in the main body (scenes 3-10) of the play.

Scene 2: Off to War                        The women give the background to their decision to leave Australia for Vietnam and their personal motivations – Sandy for glamour, Kathy to carry on a family tradition of helping out in times of war, Ruth to embark on a new step in her career as a journalist, and Eve through a general sense of dissatisfaction with expectancies of her getting married and settling down.  For Margaret, it is her husband who goes ‘off to war’.

Scene 3: Hello Vietnam                The 4 women describe the unreal world that greets them upon their arrival in Vietnam – human body parts being eaten by dogs, grenade-lobbing acid-tripping GIs and jealous prostitutes in Saigon.

Scene 4: A Workaday War           The bizarreness of everyday life during the Vietnam War is expressed in each of the women’s stories.  Margaret describes the return of her husband as ‘a ghost’.

Scene 5: Children                            This scene contains stories that involve children and tell us a universal truth, that if truth is the first victim of war, then ordinary people including children run a close second.  The stories emphasise Eve’s perception as she arrives in Vietnam in the Prologue – that the war could never be won.

Scene 6: Human Beings                 The title of the scene refers to the story Ruth tells of being unable to report on the Vietnamese as human beings, and the scene shows the enormous human cost of the war, as ordinary civilians are executed on mere suspicion of being involved with the Viet Cong.  A story of hope ends the scene as Kathy tells of a baby’s birth in a field, a new life amongst so much senseless death.

Scene 7: RandR – Romance & Rape         While many of the women did find genuine romance in Vietnam, these dalliances were often tinged with danger.  Meanwhile, back in Australia, Margaret’s husband is even more dangerous and psychologically deranged, and rapes her.  At the end of the scene the women are introduced and sing as “The Velveteens”.

Scene 8: War Does Become Normal        The weirdness and strangeness of the Vietnam War begins to become normalised.  Many of the women tell bizarre stories with surreal and sometimes disturbing juxtapositions.  A dying GI hallucinates his wife onto Eve, Ruth witnesses a rudimentary electro-interrogation, and Sandy gets a thrill out of firing an M16 off the back of a jeep.  The scene ends with the music of Bing Crosby, singing “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas”.

Scene 9: Goodnight Saigon                          The women describe their hasty evacuation following the fall of Saigon, and the end of their experiences.  Margaret’s husband commits suicide, Sandy’s entertainment dreams end in the story of 6 GI’s raping her girlfriend in a hut.

Scene 10: Aftermath                      Returning to Australia makes the women realise the extent to which their experiences in Vietnam have affected them.  Their reactions are either of frustration and boredom, or a continuation of their responses in Vietnam.  Ruth harangues a film theatre audience for laughing in MASH, Sandy dives into the gutter when she hears some Hare Krishnas, Kathy will only date Vietnam Vets, while Eve’s health has been affected by the chemicals.

Scene 11: Epilogue                          The play returns to the Anzac Day march, and the women reiterate the profound effect that their Vietnam experience has had on them.  They end all singing together with the lyrics of a Joni Mitchell song “The Circle Game”, symbolising the return of the plot to its starting point and the experiences of the women in Vietnam that are life altering and will never be forgotten.

All Resources created by englishtutorlessons.com.au Online Tutoring using Zoom for Mainstream English Students in the Victorian Curriculum

This Resource is for students in Year 11 studying ‘Wilfred Owen War Poems’ in AOS1: Unit 1, Reading & Creating Texts, Analytical Text Response, in the Victorian VCE Curriculum.

It can also be studied in AOS1:Unit 2, Reading & Comparing Texts along with ‘Minefields & Miniskirts’ play by Terrence O’Connell.

Poetry in Context of World War I 1914-1918

The literary responses evoked by the Great War were in many ways unique, particularly the writings that came from its immediate participants.  The British war poets such as Owen, Sassoon, Brooke, Graves and Rosenberg are familiar to many, but it needs to be remembered that their work was but a small sample of the literature produced by soldiers at the front.  Australian soldiers fighting on the Western Front from 1914 to1918 also generated poetry and stories that have been published.

World War I in Context of Why Men Enlisted

Many of the thousands of British men (and Australian men) enlisted for quite different reasons: they were spurred by the public propaganda campaigns, the rousing speeches of politicians, clergymen and headmasters, the call of adventure, family and civic pressure and, for those without steady employment, the lure of regular pay. Some would have enlisted as they feared being labelled as cowards; it was an era where social pressure could be intense. To receive a white feather was seen as shameful. It is also crucial to remember that formal religion underpinned life in WWI Britain more than it does now. Much of the propaganda encouraging young men to enlist in WWI included notions of personal responsibility to God as well as patriotism to King and Country.

Why did Owen Enlist?

Despite a view that Owen’s motives in enlisting may have been more self-focused than patriotic, there is no doubt that he did take his role as an officer and soldier very seriously in France. Owen enlisted in the Artists’ Rifles on October 21, 1915, and spent nearly fourteen months training in various places around the English countryside before heading to France in winter, 1916.  It is worth noting that Owen did not actually spend a great deal of time at the Front compared to many soldiers. The battle experience on which his most famous poems are based was contained to about four months of which Owen spent no more than five weeks at the Front Line.

Battle in France 1916

Second Lieutenant Wilfred Owen arrived in France in late December 1916, right in the middle of the coldest winter of the war. He was sent to Beaumont Hamel on the Somme as one of 527 reinforcements sent out following heavy losses in the Ancre Offensive. His letters to his mother from this period reflect his shock at the conditions both in the trenches and behind the lines. He also speaks movingly of his pity for his fellow soldiers and their suffering, especially in the extreme cold of that particular winter, when men were known to freeze to death. His language, even in these simple letters, is evocative, making the reader truly understand the deprivation and hardship brought on by the war. ‘Futility’ and ‘Exposure’ are fine examples of poems based on these experiences.

In March 1917, Owen fell into a cellar suffering a concussion, which hospitalised him for two weeks. On his return to his battalion at the beginning of April, he found himself involved in heavy fighting near St Quentin. He was blown off his feet and spent several days in a shell-hole surrounded by the remains of a fellow officer. Owen was not physically hurt, but when his Battalion was relieved, it was noticed that his behaviour had become somewhat strange—his speech was confused and he seemed shaky. He was diagnosed as suffering from shell-shock and was sent to a Casualty Clearing Station. Eventually he was sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh, where he would remain for four months.

Owen Meets Poet Siegfried Sassoon at Craiglockhart

Whilst a patient at Craiglockhart, Owen met Siegfried Sassoon, a fellow patient, and the two became friends. Sassoon’s reputation as a poet and decorated war hero had preceded him.  Sassoon perceived a natural talent hidden in some of Owen’s poems. Sassoon encouraged Owen, even offering advice on the manuscript of one of Owen’s most famous poems, ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’.  His friendship with Sassoon gave Owen the impetus he needed and it was at this time that Owen wrote ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’, responding to the propagandist poems of Jessie Pope and others like her, who persuaded young men into joining up when they had little or no grasp of what was involved at the front.

Return to France in 1917

Owen left Craiglockhart in October 1917 to undertake more training and also used his leave opportunities to visit literary friends in London. By the end of August 1918, he was back in France, having been passed fit to return to the Front. Before leaving England, he had told his brother, Harold, of his desire to return to the front, despite sensing that he, like so many English soldiers, would be killed. He had also, encouraged by friends, started planning a volume of poetry for publication, for which the draft Preface is included in Stallworthy’s collection.

In October 1918, he was awarded the Military Cross. On the morning of 4^th November, while attempting to cross the Sambre-Oise Canal, Owen was shot and killed (only 7 days before War was officially ended on 11^th November, 1918. Owen is buried in the tiny Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery at Ors.

Owen and ‘The Pity of War’

The Preface written by Wilfred Owen in 1918 for the collection of poems he intended to have published after the war indicates his vision and aim as a poet. ‘Above all I am not concerned with Poetry/My subject is War, and the pity of War/The Poetry is in the pity’.  He goes on to say that even though his poems will offer no consolation to those who suffered WWI, they may be of use to the next generation, particularly as a warning about the consequences of war: the real experience of it and what it does to people.  Owen’s poems convey his genuine feelings for soldiers as they are caught up in the pity of war.  Here are soldiers experiencing extreme destructiveness: destruction of civilization, destruction of the landscape, and very importantly, the destructive effect war can have on a soldier’s physical, spiritual and psychological life.

Most Famous of Owen’s Anti-War Poem is ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’

Owen wrote it as he was recovering in hospital after being shell-shocked and gassed.  The title refers to a famous Latin patriotic saying ‘Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’ meaning that it is sweet and noble to die for one’s country.  However, Owen disagrees with this as he has been at war and seen the reality.  In order to prove that there is no heroism in war, Owen recreates the reality very vividly with soldiers “bent double, like old beggars under sacks” and later “all went lame: all blind.”  The imagery is one of physical despair, illness and ageing before one’s time showing us that this is what one reaps from war.  The vivid contrast with the reality of “gas! gas! quick, boys!” confronts us with the reality of attack and the nightmare vision is surreal “as under a green sea I saw him drowning”.  Onomatopoeia is used throughout the poem creating very clear and disturbing imagery “guttering, choking, drowning, smothering, gargling.”  Owen builds up the reality of the men suffering and we cannot turn away from it. It is anything but noble and heroic, furthermore the dead are simply “flung”.  In particular the reality of dead men thrown one on top the other on a carriage disgust us, yet we cannot turn away from the horror, “if you could hear at every jolt, the blood, come gargling from the froth, corrupted lungs, obscene as cancer…” which leads to the conclusion that only silly children would believe the Old Lie: ‘How sweet it is to die for one’s country’.

All Resources created by englishtutorlessons.com.au Online Tutoring using Zoom for Mainstream English Students in the Victorian Curriculum