The Letter
Sabrina & Zaheen
The Letter
With B.E.F. Jun 10. Dear Wife,
(Oh blast this pencil. 'Ere, Bill, lend's a knife.)
I'm in the pink at present, dear.
I think the war will end this year.
We don't see much of them square-'eaded 'Uns.
We're out of harm's way, not bad fed.
I'm longing for a taste of your old buns.
(Say, Jimmie, spare's a bite of bread.)
There don't seem much to say just now.
(Yer what? Then don't, yer ruddy cow!
And give us back me cigarette!)
I'll soon be 'ome. You mustn't fret.
My feet's improvin', as I told you of.
We're out in the rest now. Never fear.
(VRACH! By crumbs, but that was near.)
Mother might spare you half a sov.
Kiss Nell and Bert. When me and you(Eh? What the 'ell! Stand to? Stand to!
Jim, give's a hand with pack on, lad.
Guh! Christ! I'm hit. Take 'old. Aye, bad.
No, damn your iodine. Jim? 'Ere!
Write my old girl, Jim, there's a dear.)
Synopsis
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An ordinary soldier is writing a letter home to his wife from a rest
position on the Front. He tells her all is well with him and that he
thinks the war might end soon. He hasn’t seen much of the enemy
and he also writes about his children and mother. By the end of the
poem, the writer is fatally wounded and asks his comrade to write to
his wife.
Commentary
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Context -The Letter was written in Ripon in 1918 when Owen was preparing to return to
France for what would be the last time. As a British officer, Owen’s first duty was to look after
the ‘men’ under his command. Owen knew his troops very well and cared for them deeply.
Although his own background was middle class, he had a good understanding of the working
men with whom he served, perhaps more so than Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves who
were upper-class public school boys.
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Letters Home - Most soldiers during the First World War could read and write.
Letters from home and to home were very important since there were no access to telephones.
Letters were written in pencil since biros (kind of ballpoint pen ) were not yet invented and
fountain pens were only used by officers. The men weren’t allowed to write about the actual
conditions that they faced and the letter would be read by officers who might heavily censor
them. Reading those letters would have been one of Owen’s duties as officer.
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Life on the Front
B.E.F. stands for British Expeditionary Force, the name given to the army in 1914. For security reasons it was the only address
the troops were allowed to use
In the rest: when the troops were not actually fighting on the front line they were sent back to ‘rest’. This was a misnomer. The
men continued to train and were also at risk from bombardment. However they would be out of the trenches and in a place more
conducive for writing letters
Trench foot: most men suffered from this condition as a result of standing in cold water and mud for hours on end in the
trenches. The foot became white, swollen and smelly. It was very painful and extreme cases could result in amputation
The order to ‘stand to’ was a military command ordering the men to get ready for action.
Themes
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Affection - The way in which the men protects the loved ones at home from the realities of war by writing
rather idealistically.
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Camaraderie - Friendship between the men. The banter and cursing is a clear example of the exceptional
comradeship between the men ( ruddy cow)
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Horror, pain & death - Owen writes about the horror which the men had to go through. The soldier is
attacked by the end of the ‘letter’ and as it seems, it alludes to his death as he requests his fellow soldier to write to
his wife as he is incapable to do so after being attacked.
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Secrecy and Lies
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Futility (letter itself if futile in war)
Imagery and Symbolism
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Metaphor - in the pink (implies the writer is good health) , ‘square-’eaded
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Symbolism - Owen gives us the reality of war. The writer’s wife and children symbolizes all that the men are
‘Uns (refers to the almost square
shaped helmets worn by the German troops) , ‘ruddy cow’ (insults his comrade ‘Jimmie’ over a piece of bread as a
beast)
fighting for. The ‘iodine’ is a symbol of the inadequacy of medicine to fight the horrible wounds sustained. Iodine was
used as a disinfectant to prevent gangrene in wounds on the Front. The writer’s damning of the iodine suggests the
man knows he is about to die, hence revealing the uselessness of the iodine to his wounds and injuries. Letter is also
ineffective because the truth isn’t able to be conveyed. The pencil is also ineffective.
Language
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Colloquial Language
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- dropped aitches (‘Ere , ‘ome, square-‘eaded ‘Uns) , accent (Yer for you)
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- slurring of words – contraction -(spare’s [spare us] , lend’s [lend us] ) ; shows easy familiarity between the men.
Subtly showing the camaraderie between the writer and the men.
-affectionate (my old girl) -> to describe his wife.The writer also writes to his wife that his mother might spare them
half a sov (sovereign). This demonstrates his care and concern for his wife as a sovereign meant a great deal of
money during that time.
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Grammatical Errors -
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‘don’t’ instead of ‘doesn’t’ , ‘not bad fed’ instead of ‘not badly fed’
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*shows lack of education. – characterizing soldiers
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‘write my old girl’ instead of ‘write to’
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*Because it is presumed to be the final days of his life, or the uncertainty of life as a soldier, Owen is either
maintaining casual speech of the man or he is either trying to emphasize that in his pain, he must say what he wants
in the fewest words possible.
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Strong Language -
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common in usage among men under pressure at the Western Front.
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-ruddy (less offensive version of the word ‘bloody’)
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-by crumbs (mild expletive used when a shell almost hits camp)
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-guh! (natural expiration of air)
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-Christ! (reflects degree of agony)
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-VRACH! (Onomatopoeia - convey actual noise of explosion )
Tone
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Wide range of emotions
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Goes from optimism (i think the war will end this year l.4) , to brutal reality (bracketed lines) , to despair and finally
an affectionate tone (Kiss Nell and Bert)
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‘When me and you-’ (tone is hopeful and even romantic, but changes immediately after the caesura to surprise,
disbelief, panic and then horror as the writer takes the hit.
In the end, the tone becomes affectionate again when the man is giving his last request to his comrade (there’s a
dear l.22)
Tone is also Heavily Ironic. The poem opens rather formally to the poet’s wife before changing into a blunt
conversation between the poet and his comrades in which Owen placed in brackets. The contrast of the lines in
brackets and the lines in the ‘letter to his wife’ shows the irony of a soldier’s usage of letters. Letter are used to
convey truth but in this poem, it is instead deliberately used otherwise.
Form
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Letter interspersed with dialogue
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The letter is written as regular lines and the dialogue are the bracketed lines
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Written as a rather personal account (I, we , or name [mother, Jim, Christ])
Structure
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Rhyme - Divided through a series of quatrains made up of rhyming couplets ; aa bb (exceptions
are lines 5-8 [cd cd] , lines 13-16 [gh hg] ) *rhymes are not strained due to the diversion of alternating
discourses (a prose text containing a line of thinking or argument)
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Rhythm -Written in tetrameter (lengthened in some lines to pentameter) *conveys natural flow of
feeling