Marriage and Wilfred Owens War Essay

Marriage and Wilfred Owens War Essay Marriage and Wilfred Owens War Essay Explore the ways in which writers present disturbed minds in a selection of Wilfred Owen’s war poems and William Shakespeare’s â€Å"Hamlet† Throughout both Hamlet and Wilfred Owen’s war poems they both show the uncertainty of the nature of death and the afterlife which are triggered through deep contemplations which creates disturbance. However in Hamlet he is not merely disturbed by death, he is also disturbed by the marriage of his uncle and mother. In Wilfred Owen he is disturbed by the violence and destructive nature of war in which affects him mentally and physically. In one of Wilfred Owens war poems â€Å"Mental Cases† he presents the tortured minds of the soldiers in which are completely trapped in the war. Wilfred compares the soldiers to skulls when saying ‘Baring teeth that leer like skulls’ teeth wicked?’ this is because they are like the living dead with fixed smiles on their skulls as they have to put on a brave face. The word ‘wicked’ shows an evil image that mankind should not be faced too as there youth has been taken away from them. He describes the eyes of the soldiers as ‘fretted sockets’ which gives an image of black dark circles around the eyes as they have nightmares of the war and can’t sleep. Owen has had these experiences when being shellshock therefore he is one of the mental cases which creates a disturbed mind as he has already experienced this and it is happening to other people. In the second stanza Wilfred capitalizes ‘Dead’ to emphasis death in whi ch is personified through the poem. Death being personified means that it is a disturbing thing as the war is hopeless and is creating a loss of those close to him(like Hamlet losing his father). The ‘memory fingers in their hair of murders’ shows that the soldiers are having to live with bad memories as they have murdered people, although they do not like to see it as that as it is an act of duty. However they can’t get away from all the bad memories as it is stuck in there head hanging in the back of their mind. Also Wilfred describes how the air that created the chuckle and laughter is now gone which is an disturbing