Illusions In Wilfred Owen's Exposure

Illusions allow for humans to hide their fear, vulnerabilities, and feelings. These illusions distort reality, allowing people to perceive things as they want, which consequently results in anger after a person distinguishes between reality and illusion. This is often because illusions are used to protect humans, and allow those to write one's own story to hide from vulnerabilities that one faces. Anger is a prevalent theme in Wilfred Owen's poem, "Exposure", as well as the play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" by Edward Albee. Both texts depict anger by the disillusionment either by the author themselves, or the characters. These illusions often derail people from a rational state, as they cause them to inadvertently live lives in accordance …show more content…
In his earlier work, "Ballad of Peace", contrasts "Exposure". His earlier poem "the soil is safe", indicating the serene and peace he feels. He also mentions that it is "sweet to live at peace with others, but sweeter still… to die in war for brothers". Owen writes this poem as he gets drafted into war, and believes that death contributing to war is heroic and brave. As he fights the horrendous battles in the trenches, his attitude of courage and heroism begin to dwindle until he is only angry. He was angry at the propaganda[2], angry at how the war was glamorized, and lastly, he was angry at the war itself. This is indicated in "Exposure" as he writes about the soldiers who are exposed to the horrible conditions of open trench warfare while fighting on the enemy ground. Owen presents the idea of war in a destructive form that claims the people who are put through wars by taking their sanity and benevolence from the those that partake in the war. Men out in the trenches are left to suffer. They are fighting a war, but have nothing left to fight for in their lives. The poem is in the first person, but uses plural pronouns of "we, us," to symbolize that all of the souls in the battleground felt "the poignant misery" of the war. It describes the melancholy that the soldiers all felt collectively in the war, not just Owen alone. He reminds the audience that casualties in war are insignificant and that death in war is …show more content…
They are contentious to one another throughout the entire play and make a belligerent environment for their younger guest couple, Nick and Honey. Martha and George are constantly trying to keep up their reputation by building a narrative with their perception of ideal while trying to dismantle the other person's version of fantasy. In act one, Martha discloses that she has a son to Honey. It leaves George in anger. They make further comments to the story until George kills off their son. This leads to the younger couple realizing the son was a fabrication and was merely an deception. Strangely, the son is killed the same way as the father of the boy he knew in grade school. George claims that he boy began his journey with a "learner's permit in his pocket and his father on the front seat to his right, he swerved the car to avoid a porcupine and drove straight into a large tree. (106)", which is exactly the same as how the son died. The illusion of the son becomes reality when George's son is killed, revealing the that the boy in the story was actually George himself. Throughout the story, he tries to suppress this reality by creating quarreling with his wife, which end up with conflicting stories of their kid. He gets enraged of Martha's story of their son, which is the case because he foresees that some aspects of his reality would get