Zooming into Disabled: Wilfred Owen Wednesday, 05 December 2018

All analysis requires evidence… Remember PEARL? Point, EVIDENCE, ANALYSIS, RELATE, link. Evidence is “easy” – a strong quotation, but A&R require zooming in to concentrate on the key word or phrase under consideration. All analysis requires evidence…

Using a SCASI framework: Setting: Plenty to discuss – location, time of day, era… Example: “waiting for dark” Zooming in to analyse – the key here is the word “dark”… “the word “dark” suggests a longing for the close of day either to allow the soldier to lose himself in sleep, or at a deeper level, to relate metaphorically the “dark” of the evening with a wish for death. Using a SCASI framework:

Another … Character: “All of them touch him like some queer disease” Here the focus is women in general – they touch him, not as before when he was young, but as though he is a “queer disease” – as though they are scared of catching his disability. The word “queer” stresses the lack of understanding of the strangeness of his new appearance” Another …

Try a couple more SCASI focus Evidence Zoomed in analysis S C A I “About this time Town used to swing so gay” C “One time he liked a blood-smear down his leg” A “He sat in a wheeled chair and shivered in his ghastly suit of grey” “In old times, before he threw away his knees” I Why don’t they come/And put him to bed? Why don’t they come? Try a couple more

My offerings SCASI focus Evidence Zoomed in analysis S C A I “About this time Town used to swing so gay” The depiction of the Town and the life he is missing is strengthened by a verb associated with music and dancing – “swing” which h strengthens the irony of the now legless man. C “One time he liked a blood-smear down his leg” The heroic blood after the football game is not even a wound – the ”smear” suggests that this is blood transferred from another player A “He sat in a wheeled chair and shivered in his ghastly suit of grey” Not only does “shivered” suggest physical discomfort, but it also suggests fear, possibly of what the future holds. “In old times, before he threw away his knees” The typically understated metaphor in which his wound is a careless, self inflicted act. I Why don’t they come/And put him to bed? Why don’t they come? The idea is that the reader is implicated in the desertion of the soldier. The repetition of “why don’t they come” at the close forces a response from the reader.