Wilfred Owen: Poems

How does Owen represent the idea of death and loss in "disabled"?

Including structure, character, poetic language etc

any ideas?

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This poem is really about the loss of youth, loss of a fully functioning body and a lament about the body's destruction in war. The half-working body sits in a wheelchair . The speaker laments about war and death. The man sits in his wheelchair waiting for nightfall. He is chilled in his gray suit which is legless and sewn at the elbows. Boys' voices ring out in the park; the voices are of "play and pleasure" that echo until sleep takes them away from him.

Around this time the town used to be lively, with lamps in the trees and girls dancing in the dim air. These were the old days before "he threw away his knees". He will no longer have the chance to put his arms around girls' slim waists or feel their warm hands. They look at him like he has a strange disease. Last year there was an artist that wanted to depict his youth, but now he is old. His back will not "brace" and he gave up his color in a land very far from here. He let it drain into "shell-holes" until it was all gone. Half of his life is now passed from that "hot race", when a spurt of purple burst from his thigh.

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