Arms and the Boy by Wilfred Owen Essay Example

these so-called people “stroke” or hold dear these blunt-bullet heads.

The speaker earlier associated them with the sharpness of instruments of War, and now with the bluntness of the same. He suggests in the process, the shallow/blunt causes that led to the cruel/sharp war. These long to point their nuzzle at the hearts of lads destroying them with inhuman instincts rather than resort to physical killing. He must be provided with cartridges of fine zinc teeth that act as his greeting. The teeth are a symbol of greeting as the smile is incomplete without them. And a smile is the first instance of greeting, Here the mode of greeting is nhanced with cartridges of zinc. These cartridges of fine zinc teeth will be sharp with anguish of grief, and the pangs of death. His teeth is revealed to be like that of Satan as it is found laughing around the Forbiiden fruit(apple). Nevertheless, God endeavours his best against the transition of the soldier into a complete devil: For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple. There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple; And God will grow no talons at his heels, Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls. The talons and antlers are those of a demon.

God was in total opposition to this collective ‘demonification’ of a race as a whole. It also suggests that the man did not become a devil naturally; neither was he divinely-induced to do so. This points to how God is against the concept of war itself, how ‘war’ is a man-made disaster and how God does not entail this phenomenon. The people

who were shoved into the World War were those least accustomed to its atrocious tendencies. By focusing on the concept of War, Man was cutting off the branch that he was sitting on.