Wilfred Owen's poem "Futility" expresses the grief and senselessness of war through the image of a dead soldier whose body cannot be awakened even by the sun. The poem contrasts the peaceful way the sun used to wake the soldier with its inability to rouse his dead body. Through rhetorical questions, Owen questions what purpose there could be for creating life on earth if so many young men are killed in war.

1. Futility Revision

2. Futility by Wilfred Owen
Move him into the sun -
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it awoke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds -
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved - still warm - too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?

3. Wilfred Owen's poem Futility is one that he himself placed
under the category Grief.
Owen is considered to be one of the greatest poets of
World War I, speaking out openly against its horrors which
he experienced first hand in the trenches.
Futility is a brief poem of fourteen lines divided into two
stanzas; it is full of emotion and poignancy.
The poem concerns the body of a soldier who is not
named, but it appears to be someone that Owen knew
personally.

6. Tracking the poem line by line
In the opening line of the poem Owen mentions the sun, which
is a recurring feature throughout the fourteen lines. There is a
suggestion to move “him” – the soldier who has just died – into
the sun in the hope that it might bring him back to life.
The atmosphere or tone of the first stanza is quiet and peaceful;
Owen uses words such as “Gently” and “whispering.” There is
also assonance with a soft “ow” sound in “awoke,” “unsown,”
“snow” and “know.”

7. The soldier must once have been a farmer, as Owen describes
how the sun awoke him “whispering of fields unsown.” It awoke
him “even in France,” in other words when he came to fight in
the trenches.
Line 5, however, marks a change, as the sun always woke the
soldier up “Until this morning.” The sun cannot awaken the dead
man, and the mention of snow suggests the coldness of death,
contrasting with warm life-giving sunshine.
As the first stanza comes to a close, Owen personifies the sun as
being “kind old,” like a kindly old gentleman. The sun is the only
entity that might bring life back to the dead soldier.

8. At the start of the second stanza Owen considers the sun's
powers. He thinks about how it “wakes the seeds,” making them
grow. He goes on to recall how it woke “the clays of a cold star,”
in other words how it brought life to the earth.
The alliteration here of the hard “c” sound emphasises the sense
of coldness before life began. In lines 10 and 11 Owen uses
enjambment to link the two lines and extend his ideas. He
describes limbs as “so dear-achieved,” giving a sense of the
effort that goes into raising a child and caring for them to
adulthood.
The soldier's body still has its nerves present and is “still warm;”
this phrase is separated by a pair of dashes that draw attention
to it.

9. Owen wonders why it is not possible to bring this man back to life.
Line 11 is the first of three rhetorical questions in the second stanza, where
Owen fully expresses his feelings of the futility of war. In line 12 the poet uses
clay, echoing line 9, as a metaphor for man, questioning whether a person
grows into an adult merely to die in war.
In the poem's penultimate line, Owen describes the sun's rays as “fatuous,”
in other words pointless, foolish or complacent. He wonders what the point
was in life being created on earth at all, if so many men are killed when their
adult life has only just begun.
The poem ends with the third rhetorical question, creating a sense that Owen
cannot comprehend the purpose of life on earth if it merely leads to soldiers
dying senselessly.

10. Sound effects
Wilfred Owen uses rhyme and half rhymes in a subtle way in
Futility. In the first four lines there are half rhymes at the end of
alternate lines, and then a full rhyme with “snow” and “know” in
lines 5 and 7. Line 6 ends with “now,” which of course appears to
end in the same way but does not rhyme with “snow” and
“know.”
There is, however, assonance in line 6 with “rouse” and “now.” In
the second stanza, there is a half rhyme at the end of lines 8 and
10, then a full rhyme at the end of lines 12 and 14. Lines 9 and
11 end with “star” and “stir,” an alliterative half-rhyme. Line 13
ends with “toil,” which creates a half rhyme with “tall” and “all.”
Perhaps using full rhymes throughout the poem would have
created a lighter tone, which is obviously not the effect the
Owen desired. The use of half rhymes and alliteration is more
subtle but creates fascinating sound patterns.

11. Futility is a poem charged with emotion; Owen
had witnessed the deaths of friends of his while
fighting in the war and his grief comes across
powerfully here. War for Owen was senseless; for
so many men to lose their lives, especially at a
young age, made him question the purpose of our
existence. The contrast between the peacefulness
of the first stanza and the grief and anger of the
second make this a poem that conveys its
message with force.