The
implications of the war in Ian McEwan's Atonement' and Wilfred
Owen's poetry go far beyond putting their work into a historical
perspective. The war's true importance in Atonement' is to help
delve deeper into the psyche of a character that has lost all
consciousness of reality in this way Owen uses war as a symbol of
the tragedy of human life. Both texts reflect on the idea that
suffering, waste, violence and evil are the necessary conditions of
human life and more importantly they shed light on the unspoken
soldier's experiences that could not have their story told in any
other way. War in both 'Atonement' and in Owen's poetry is
presented as a "nightmare" in which its corruptive power puts men
in a degraded state of mind. Many men
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In Owen's poem
Exposure' the alliteration in "the frost will fasten on this mud
and us" depicts the weather as determined and malicious, and
similar repetition of the "f" sound in "pale flakes with fingering
stealth" that "come feeling for our faces" seems to suggests the
way the cold subtly infiltrates and clings to the body. The
metaphor "fastening" and "fingering stealth" suggests the
relentless and almost malign way in which the cold takes hold of
the body, with the "merciless east winds" more deadly than "flights
of bullets" highlighting the sheer severity of such conditions
towards human life. The determination of the personified conditions
is also apparent in Atonement' when Robbie tries to run for his
life despite the "rich soil clinging to his boots". The use of the
verb "clinging" highlights how difficult the conditions were to
survive in. McEwan can convey the conditions of war so vividly
because his father would have passed his stories of war on to him
meaning both writers are able to reveal how mundane details like
mud can have such a devastating impact. It also conveys the
desperation of the situation in which every man is for himself.
Owen himself experienced the coldest winter in living memory. In
January 1917 his men "had to lie out in the snow and the deadly
wind", he wrote to his mother; for two days and two nights at Redan
Ridge unable to move and one man did actually freeze to death as
depicted in another of his poems Futility.' In the poem 1914'
Owen depicts war as the "winter of the world". The metaphor
highlights the harsh conditions of reality with destructive verbs
such as "whirled" and "down-hurled" creating a tone of despair and
horror at the destruction wrought by the war on societies across
the globe.
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