Essay Title – Any one of the poems considered could have been entitled “FUTILITY”. Discuss 1500 words The First World War was a war that brought much pain, sorrow and bitterness into people’s lives. Accounts of the war tell us the horror and the realities the soldiers in the trenches and involved in the war effort were faced with everyday. Poems were written from the front line because they are one of the most powerful ways to create and convey an idea or opinion. Many soldiers wrote poems for loved ones, friends or family wishing them to understand the horror, tragedy and harsh realities that those involved faced. I have studied a number of poets and poems, which I believe could easily be called futility, but the poet I have found most significant during this period is Wilfred Owen. All of Owen’s war poetry could be titled Futility. The one I felt most hard hitting was “Dulce est Decorum Est”, the title is very appropriate and ironic, it means in Latin “How sweet and fitting”. The poem tells the story of Owen and his fellow soldiers slowly marching away from the shells exploding behind them. A gas shell falls on them and they are all so tired it is difficult to put on their gas masks to protect themselves. In the rush, one man clumsily drops his mask. Owen tells the reader about this man being slowly killed and watching his body being thrown into the back of wagon like cattle at the slaughter. The attitude to war at the time was that serving your country was glorious. Owen actually experienced the war and his poems are the reflective views of the serving soldiers. Many of them were young men who had been lured in by propaganda campaigns the government had launched. Owen rejects this attitude and the way in which it is so often glorified. He is critical to the high zest or the enthusiasm used to convince young men to go to war. He see’s it as wasteful of young lives. Owen also makes it clear to the reader that he is unconvinced by the persuasive speaking and...