Fuitility

Question 1

Positive image i

Of the sun first stanza

Answer 1

The key image is the sun. In the first stanza this is a positive force and the imagery is all about waking up. Words such as “move him”, “gently”, “whispering”, “rouse” all suggest a soft, motherly force. The sun is “kind” and “old”.

Question 2

The sun in the second stanza

Answer 2

In the second stanza the image of the sun becomes negative. This is expressed in the expression “cold star”. The contradiction between the star, which is hot, and the description “cold” is called an oxymoron. This shows that the sun may be literally warm but it has no feelings. It does not care that it creates life only to watch it die. The image also reminds us that people, when dead, go cold.

Question 3

Stupid

Answer 3

fatuous sunbeams” working away. “Fatuous” means ‘stupid

Question 4

Rhyme

Answer 4

There are full rhymes (snow-know and tall-all) at the ends of the stanzas. By creating a pattern of rhymes that are not exact, however, he is expressing a sense of broken harmony beneath a seemingly strong surface.

Question 5

The poems attitude to death

Answer 5

There is no reason to celebrate a life. There is no hope anywhere. Life is ‘futile’. The poem about his friend becomes an elegy for all mankind.

Question 6

From just one person to everyone

Answer 6

The anger comes through personal knowledge of the dead man’s peaceful past. It is made much stronger by the way Owen uses metaphors to apply this to all life. For example “fields half-sown” which refers both to the farm the dead man grew up on and the soldiers being cut down in battle like corn at harvest-time.

Question 7

Poems conclusion

Answer 7

Owen does not reach any conclusions in the poem (this too would be futile). Instead he expresses his anger in a series of rhetorical questions at the end (lines 11, 12 and 13/14). He is angry not just at war or the sun but at the whole of Creation as well.

Question 8

Campare to

Answer 8

Boynet charge

Falling leaves

Question 9

Stanzas

Answer 9

Futility is written in 14 lines like a sonnet. It is not structured like one though. This poem has two seven-line stanzas.
The two-stanza structure reflects the poem’s change in tone, from hope and confidence to despair.