Harrowing Moments Of Suffering In Hynes By Wilfred Owen

Both Hynes and Owen are depicting harrowing moments of suffering in their own respective ways. While Owen’s recounts the miseries endured in World War 1, Hynes focuses on her mother’s personal battle with cancer. Both depict suffering yet the two events differ in scope, WW1 was enormous, encompassing and after shock inducing in a world that had yet faced such despair. This was a public event yet Owens narrows the scope to the perspective of his comrades. Hynes focuses on a private struggle and is able to provide a voice that transcends the obstacles of endured by one individual. Owens and Hynes use imagery, symbolism and allusions to convey their depictions of suffering. Owen’s portrays the plight of soldiers as zombies pushing through the trudge. Their suffering lies in their lack of purpose. This can be seen throughout the first stanza as he describes the soldiers as “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks” (467). The simile “coughing like hags” (467) further adds to this image of the soldiers’ sick and hunched over, clearly not marching with their held high on their shoulders. Immediately, the readers are forced to face this jarring portrayal of what soldiers actually look like on the battlefield. Following this Owen looks around and see’s that is appeared as though the “men marched asleep… Drunk with fatigue; …show more content…
Owen is able to show throughout the poem that the soldiers are not really dying for anything, they are fighting without a real purpose as the war as shell shocked them into zombies that are choking with their reality. This is a powerful end to a powerful poem and is meant to send a message. Hynes ends her poem in subdued manner, also referencing the loss of hope and a potential faltering in purpose but by no means is there an