Futility

Question 1

Context

Answer 1

• Written by Wilfred Owen
• served in the first world war
• was killed in combat one week before the war ended
• Futility is a poem about the pointlessness of war

Question 2

Structure

Answer 2

• 2 stanzas
• no rhyme scheme beside the 5th and 7th line in both stanzas
• each stanza is 7 lines
• the structuring of the stanzas but not the rhyme scheme reflects the structured chaos of war

Question 3

“Move him into the sun”
“Gently its touch”
“Whispering”

Answer 3

• personification of the sun
• gentle imagery (contrasting war)

Question 4

Repeated references to waking up

Answer 4

trying to bring a dead soldier back to life

Question 5

“this snow”

Answer 5

symbolic of deaths coldness

Question 6

“The kind old sun will know”

“It wakes the seeds”

Answer 6

sun is a symbol of wisdom
- it beholds the soldiers with warmth and empathy
- it creates life but cannot bring back what is lost

Question 7

“Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?”

Answer 7

Reference to temperature
- the speaker believes that if the dead soldiers body is still warm, then the soldier must have some life left in him

• the sun provides life and warmth, so the speaker believes the sun can bring life back into the dead soldier