By Wilfred Owen

The Send-Off

• To explore and analyse Wilfred Owen’s poem ‘The Send Off’

• To learn how Owen presents his thoughts and feelings

Learning Objectives:

The Send-Off

What does the title tell us about what is happening?

Who is it happening to?What do you think their feelings are at leaving?

How do those left behind feel?

The Send-OffSent off to war = sent off to their deaths – straight away we can see Owen’s pessimistic point of view about the war

‘Down the close darkening lanes they sang their way/ To the siding shed’

Siding Shed = alliteration. The siding shed is a shed at the end of a siding (a dead end railway track where goods are processed). Cattle and other animals would be loaded into wagons from similar facilities, Owen reveals how the soldiers are being treated as goods; passengers would get on a train from a platform at the station, not from a shed at the end of a siding.

‘Down, ‘close, ‘darkening lanes’ = oppressive feeling - image of doom

‘And lined the train with faces grimly gay.’

Oxymoron (a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms)

Alliteration – ‘g’ sound to emphasise the forced smiles

‘Their breasts are stuck all white with wreath and

spray/As men’s are, dead.’

Irony: used for celebrations but Owen makes us think of funeral flowers

Symbolises peaceStuck = wounded

‘Dull porters watched them...’

Insensitive or lacking interest; listless. This suggests the porters have seen so many soldiers leave on the trains that they have become dulled to it all

‘and a casual tramp/ Stood staring hard, Sorry to miss

them from the upland camp.’

Alliteration: ‘s’ makes a shushing sound – stood staring – not making a sound

Casual: Unconcerned about the men potentially going to their deaths; the only thing he will miss is the things the soldiers gave him when they were training at the ‘upland camp.’

‘Then, unmoved, signals nodded, and a lamp

Winked to the guard.’Personification to make the signals and the lamp have human characteristics - to indicate that it feels as if even the signals and the lamp are part of a conspiracy to send the men off to their deaths. The signals are ‘unmoved’ that the men are departing; like the ‘dull’ porters and the ‘casual’ tramp they are uncaring at what the men will face on the battlefield. That the lamp ‘winked’ suggests slyness and deceit. The lamp and signals seem to be in league with the guard who is in charge of sending the soldiers off as they nod and wink at him – they are all in it together

unmoved = lacks emotion.

How does the ‘So secretly’ link with the previous two line stanza with its ideas of conspiracy?

Owen uses a simile to describe the soldiers. Why are they ‘like wrongs hushed up’?

Owen places ‘they went’ at the end of the line. Why do you think he does that?

‘So secretly, like wrongs hushed up, they went.’

Alliteration: ‘So secretly’ is almost like a shushing sound.

Simile - suggests no one wants to think about what the men are really going to; they pretend that war is glorious and any suggestion of the horror of war has to be ‘hushed up.’

The people watching the soldiers go do not know them. They do not care for them. The soldiers do not belong there.

Why is this simple short line so sad?Who is the narrator of the poem? How do

you know? If in doubt look further on in the poem (line 14).

What is Owen trying to say in this blunt statement about people’s responses to soldiers unknown to them?

‘They were not ours:’

They: not recognised as individuals

This statement seems to be made with casual indifference. It is as if the woman does not care where the soldiers went to or where they may have fought and died because they are not ‘ours.’

What is Owen trying to suggest about people’s indifference to the deaths of those they do not know?

Think about the difference in emotion you would feel knowing a loved one – a beloved brother, uncle or father- had died in comparison to hearing of the death of a stranger from another part of England. Is Owen being fair? Aren’t all humans programmed to care more for their own family and friends than strangers?

‘We never heard to which front these were sent.’Who is

speaking?

Recurring theme of flowers - funeral goodbye and bodies prepared for death.

‘Nor there if they yet do mock what women meant

Who gave them flowers.’

‘Shall they return to beatings of great bellsIn wild train-loads?’

Rhetorical question: asks if the soldiers will be heralded as heroes for their brave actions in defending the country

Owen contrasts the earlier verb ‘went’ in this section with the verb ‘return.’ They left in full train carriages which were ‘lined’ with men but will they return in ‘wild train-loads’?

Owens views are very clear here - He knows that returning soldier are not celebrated. There are no drums or bells to welcome them back. The injured are hidden away from view as embarrassing as they show the true horror of war. There is a conspiracy of silence about the true nature of the war; those that return are not as numerous as those who left and will not line the carriages. The men who return are too traumatised by what they have seen, experienced and done to celebrate and be ‘wild.’Owen suggests there should be a celebration and outpouring of welcome for returning soldiers as they deserve it. They deserve to hear their parish church bells rung to welcome them home.

Answers his own question with repetition.The repetition of ‘few’ indicates the huge casualties experienced by the British during World War 1.

‘A few, a few, too few for drums and yells,’

‘May creep back, silent, to still village wells,’

The returning soldiers experience ‘survivor’s guilt’ - they survived when many others didn’t. It is because they don’t want to talk about the horrors they have seen and experienced and just want to quietly return home to their ‘village wells’ (representing home and a peaceful community where their basic needs are met) and get on with life. The placement of the word ‘silent’ in the middle of this line emphasises the men’s desire not to talk about their experiences – they were just too horrific to revisit.

The final line of the poem seems mysterious. Why are the roads ‘half-known’?

Is it because the soldiers don’t return home because they are ashamed at surviving?

Is it because those who are injured are sent to recuperate?

Is it because they went away such a long time ago and have experienced such a different way of life that they have half-forgotten what home looks like after the horrors they have seen?

Or does it mean something else? What do you think?

‘Up half-known roads.’

Why did Owen write this poem?

Pick two techniques he has used in the poem and explain why their use is effective. Be prepared to share them.

How does the poem make you feel about the way you think about soldiers who are fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan now and whose deaths and injuries are reported on the television and radio and in papers and on-line?

PLENARY