Spring OffensiveSpring Offensive is a poem about a group of soldiers getting ready to attack. Normally we associate spring with new life growth and happiness. In this case, the soldiers can only expect their death. The soldiers are resting and nature seems to be giving them some energy."The summer oozed into their veins, like an injected drug for their bodies pains."However, as they rest, they are still aware that they soon will have to fight again. Wilfred Owen uses alliteration to show how the men dread the n ...view middle of the document...
The men go over the hill into a hail of bullets. Wilfred Owen describes it as a surf of bullets and this gives us the image of waves of men falling, dead before they even hit the ground."Some say God caught them even before they fell."In the last verse, Owen uses a metaphor to compare the battlefield to hell. This is to point out the intensity of the fighting."The few who rushed in the body to enter hell, and there out-fending all its fiends and flames."Here he uses alliteration. The men are so distraught that they cannot talk about the battle or their dead comrades."Why speak not they of comrades that went under?""Ghastly suit of grey.""Voices of play and pleasure."This alliteration gives the poem its rhythm. In the 2nd half of the poem, we learn that the man joined the war for all the wrong reasons. He was probably encouraged to join by the propaganda at the time."Someone had said, he'd look like a god in kilts, that's why and maybe too; to please Meg."He no longer will enjoy the company of women"Tonight he noticed how the women's eyes passed from him to the strong men that were whole."He now will spend the rest of his life being looked after in an institution. His independence is gone.
