The Full Text of “Disabled”
1He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,
2And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,
3Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park
4Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,
5Voices of play and pleasure after day,
6Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.
* * * * *
7About this time Town used to swing so gay
8When glow-lamps budded in the light-blue trees,
9And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,—
10In the old times, before he threw away his knees.
11Now he will never feel again how slim
12Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands,
13All of them touch him like some queer disease.
* * * * *
14There was an artist silly for his face,
15For it was younger than his youth, last year.
16Now, he is old; his back will never brace;
17He's lost his colour very far from here,
18Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry,
19And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race
20And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.
* * * * *
21One time he liked a blood-smear down his leg,
22After the matches carried shoulder-high.
23It was after football, when he'd drunk a peg,
24He thought he'd better join. He wonders why.
25Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts.
26That's why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg,
27Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts,
28He asked to join. He didn't have to beg;
29Smiling they wrote his lie: aged nineteen years.
30Germans he scarcely thought of, all their guilt,
31And Austria's, did not move him. And no fears
32Of Fear came yet. He thought of jewelled hilts
33For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;
34And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;
35Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.
36And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.
* * * * *
37Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.
38Only a solemn man who brought him fruits
39Thanked him; and then inquired about his soul.
* * * * *
40Now, he will spend a few sick years in institutes,
41And do what things the rules consider wise,
42And take whatever pity they may dole.
43Tonight he noticed how the women's eyes
44Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.
45How cold and late it is! Why don't they come
46And put him into bed? Why don't they come?
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“Disabled” Introduction
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"Disabled" was written by Wilfred Owen, one of the most famous British poets to emerge from World War I. The poem focuses on an injured soldier in the aftermath of that very same war. Still quite young, the man feels old and depends on others for virtually everything, having lost his legs and parts of his arms in battle. Reflecting on his decision to go to war, the poem shows the horror of the conflict and suggests that many young men didn't really know what they were getting themselves into when they first enlisted. The poem was first published in 1920; Owen, however, didn't live to see this, as he was killed in action one week before the war ended.
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“Disabled” Summary
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He sits in his wheelchair, waiting for evening to fall. He shivers in his horrible gray hospital uniform, which—like him—doesn't have any legs and stops at the elbow. He hears boys having fun in the park, but it sounds to him like a sad church song; their voices are full of joy and contentment as the day comes to an end. He listens to these voices until sleep comes along like a caring mother and takes him away.
It was around this time of evening that the town used to be a lively, joyous place. There would be glowing lamps hanging like new flowers in the bluish trees, and girls casting admiring looks as the light fell. This was back before the man lost his legs. Now he'll never again know the feeling of girls' slender waists or the warmth of their gentle hands—now they treat him like he has some odd disease.
There used to be an artist who was crazy about the young man's face, which made him look even younger than his actual age—and that was only a year ago. But now he feels old. His back will never be strong again. He lost all his youthful color in a faraway place: it was poured down a cavity created by artillery fire until his veins were empty. In that moment, half of his lifetime seemed to rush by as purple spurts of blood gushed from his thigh.
In his pre-war days, he actually used to like the sight of blood on his leg after a soccer match, when teammates carried him high on their shoulders. It was after one of these matches, when he'd had a bit to drink, that he decided to enlist in the army. But now he wonders why. Someone told him he would look good in the uniform; maybe that was why. Or maybe he enlisted because he wanted to impress a girl named Meg—yes, that was it, he wanted to please flirtatious, unattainable young women; that's why he joined the army. The authorities were happy to sign him up, smirking as they wrote down the lie he told them, which was that he was 19 years old. He didn't really think much about German soldiers—didn't see them as particularly guilty or evil—and he didn't pay attention to Austria's involvement in the war. He wasn't afraid yet of fear itself. Instead, he imagined keeping jewel-handled daggers in his plaid socks, fancy salutes, caring for his weapon, taking time off, getting paid even after coming home, team camaraderie, and passing on his knowledge to younger soldiers. Soon enough, he was sent off to war as drums and cheers sounded around him.
Some people applauded him when he came back, but it wasn't like when sports fans celebrate a goal. Just one man, who seemed regretful, brought him some fruit and actually thanked him for his service. But then this man asked about the state of his soul.
Now the soldier will spend a few years ailing in various institutions and do whatever the rules say is best for his health. He'll accept whatever pity and government assistance might come his way. Tonight he saw how women looked away from him and toward strong men whose bodies were still intact. It's so cold and late! Why won't someone come and put him to bed? Why isn't anyone coming?
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“Disabled” Themes
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The Tragedy of War
“Disabled” creates an evocative portrait of the enduring horror of war. The poem focuses on a WWI veteran for whom the tragedy of war remains a daily reality. As the rest of society moves on, the soldier’s injuries—both physical and psychological—effectively prevent him from re-entering the world he knew and loved before enlisting. Despite having survived the onslaught of shells and machine-gun fire, the soldier’s life, in the poem’s view, is as good as over. The poem, then, speaks to the lasting tragedy of war, and the way its trauma leaves soldiers feeling forgotten by and removed from the rest of society.
The poem contrasts two moments in time—back then, before the war, and now, the poem’s present—to show how, though only a short period of time has passed, war has changed this young man’s life beyond recognition. The soldier now sits in a wheelchair, having lost both his legs in the fighting, and spends his time waiting for the comfort of sleep as an escape from the painful stillness of daily life. As he contemplates how things used to be, it becomes clear that he’s been permanently damaged by the war both physically and psychologically.
Back before the war, life was pretty good for the soldier! The poem captures the spirit and energy of his youth, showing it to be a time of excitement and adventure. The soldier used to like dancing with girls his age; the whole town seemed to be “swing[ing]” with fun. He was so handsome that an artist was obsessed with his face and wanted to paint it. He used to play football and was often carried on the shoulders of his teammates after a victory. In other words, he had everything going for him, and his future looked promising. It was this optimism, in fact, that spurred him on to volunteer for the military, despite being underage.
But joyful memories of youth become painful once they're gone forever. War steals lives in more ways than one, the poem implies—through death, of course, but also through ongoing physical, psychological, and emotional trauma. The happy images of the soldier’s youth are firmly in the past. War—and his injuries—have suddenly made him “old,” as if having stolen his youth.
Now, then, the young man lives a much different life than the one he should have had. Children’s voices in the park sound like a sad hymn, women treat him like he has some odd "disease," and only one man properly thanks him for his efforts in the war. The poem concludes by strongly implying that the man’s life is as good as over. Now, all he can hope for is “a few sick years in institutes” and the “pity” of those around him. He understandably questions whether it was worth fighting in the war, given that nobody really appreciates him. The tragedy of war is therefore not just its immediate horror and violence, but also its long-lasting and devastating effects—effects that can make people feel alone and cut off from any kind of happiness.
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The Glorification and Disillusionment of War
“Disabled” takes aim at the ways in which society romanticized fighting in WWI and, in doing so, sold eager young soldiers a lie. The poem implicitly criticizes the idea, peddled early on in the fighting, that war is a fun, heroic adventure rather than a brutal, horrific experience. Ultimately, the poem suggests that society’s glorification of war is at once dangerous and deeply hypocritical; not only does society lead many young men to their deaths, but it also essentially abandons those disillusioned soldiers who manage to make it home.
Like many young men of the time, the soldier in this poem was enthusiastic about going off to fight and had no real concept of the consequences. When he joined the war effort, it was on a kind of whim. Someone said he would look good in the uniform, and he thought signing up might impress girls. He didn’t think about the political causes of the war nor the reality of fighting, but rather about the glory of being a military man.
The poem also notes how the young man had once “liked” the look of blood on his leg after a minor soccer injury, which suggests that injuries made him seem strong and brave—and that he never really considered how much more severe his battle wounds might be. He also appreciated the attention of his fellow players when they held him on their shoulders after a hard-fought victory. The implication is that this young man thought war would be like a game; he believed that fighting would earn him the love, admiration, and respect of those around him.
Society did nothing to discourage the young man from believing in this illusion, and instead actively promoted the idea that war could be fun, honorable, and heroic. For example, the young man was allowed to enlist despite the authorities being well aware that he was lying about being old enough to do so. Newly drafted soldiers were then treated to pomp and ceremony, sent off to war with drumming and cheering crowds that echoed the atmosphere of the young man’s soccer games.
War quickly revealed its true colors, however, as its horrific violence left the young man “disabled” and, in his own view, practically dead to the world. War, he learned, is nothing like a game. While he once liked the look of blood dribbling “down his leg” after a soccer match, now he has no legs at all. While he imagined striking uniforms—with “jewelled hilts / For daggers in plaid socks”—now he’s stuck in “his ghastly suit of grey.” And while he was sent off to war with enthusiasm, he returns to muted cheers that can’t even match the sound of "crowds" cheering a goal in soccer. Women don’t look at him, and just one serious man has thanked him for his service. In other words, he has received none of the glorious rewards promised by war—only misery and pain.
He is, then, utterly disillusioned, since the same society that once celebrated the young man now turns its back on him, leaving him to fade away through his “sick years” in various “institutes.” Society, the poem implies, sells young men a lie about war, but then fails to deal with the consequences of that lie.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Disabled”
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Lines 1-3
He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,
And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,
Legless, sewn short at elbow.The poem opens on a young man who has been injured in war. He has now returned from the war, but his life has changed irrevocably. His name is never specified, nor is the town where he's from. This lack of specificity lends the poem a sense of universality, suggesting that the man's story is as common as it is tragic.
Sitting in a "wheeled chair," the young man "wait[s] for dark." The fact that he's in a "wheeled chair" suggests that he must be pushed around by the staff who work in the hospital, especially since he has lost the lower halves of his arms—as made evident by the fact that his hospital-issued clothing is both "legless" and "sewn short at elbow." The implication here is that he can't operate his wheelchair because he doesn't have any forearms, though this isn't necessarily an accurate reflection of what is and isn't possible for wheelchair users. Nonetheless, the young man's immobility will, as the poem goes on, form an important sense of juxtaposition with the energetic activity of his pre-war youth.
Alliteration between "wheeled" and "waiting" links these two words together, highlighting that all the man can do is sit around and wait for others. Instead of doing things himself, he has to wait for things to happen to him. The suggestion that he's "waiting for dark" could mean he longs for the comfort of sleep, but it also might refer to the eternal rest of death. This seems particularly likely, given that the rest of the poem implies he doesn't feel life is worth living anymore.
His "ghastly" gray suit almost portrays him as one of the living dead—like a zombie of sorts—and his shivering underlines this lack of life or vitality. Gray, after all, is a very drab and lifeless color, indicating a certain absence of warmth. This description of the young man's clothing also suggests that he's a shadow or ghost of his former self; the alliteration between "ghastly" and "grey" emphasizes that the man himself sees his suit as terrible and ugly, perhaps hating that he has to wear something so depressing and lifeless.
In line 3, the poem's pacing is blunt and unsparing. The man is "legless," the poem states, and this word is isolated (or severed) by the caesura that follows it:
Legless, || sewn short at elbow. [...]
This calls attention not just to the fact that he no longer has any legs, but also that his arms have been cut off at the elbow. The caesura after "elbow" spotlights the same thing, cutting the sentence short before the end of the line in the same way that the young man's limbs were cut short as a result of the war.
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Lines 3-6
Through the park
Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,
Voices of play and pleasure after day,
Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.
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Lines 7-10
About this time Town used to swing so gay
When glow-lamps budded in the light-blue trees,
And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,—
In the old times, before he threw away his knees. -
Lines 11-13
Now he will never feel again how slim
Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands,
All of them touch him like some queer disease. -
Lines 14-16
There was an artist silly for his face,
For it was younger than his youth, last year.
Now, he is old; his back will never brace; -
Lines 17-20
He's lost his colour very far from here,
Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry,
And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race
And leap of purple spurted from his thigh. -
Lines 21-24
One time he liked a blood-smear down his leg,
After the matches carried shoulder-high.
It was after football, when he'd drunk a peg,
He thought he'd better join. He wonders why. -
Lines 25-29
Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts.
That's why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg,
Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts,
He asked to join. He didn't have to beg;
Smiling they wrote his lie: aged nineteen years. -
Lines 30-36
Germans he scarcely thought of, all their guilt,
And Austria's, did not move him. And no fears
Of Fear came yet. He thought of jewelled hilts
For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;
And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;
Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.
And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers. -
Lines 37-39
Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.
Only a solemn man who brought him fruits
Thanked
him; and then inquired about his soul. -
Lines 40-44
Now, he will spend a few sick years in institutes,
And do what things the rules consider wise,
And take whatever pity they may dole.
Tonight he noticed how the women's eyes
Passed from him to the strong men that were whole. -
Lines 45-46
How cold and late it is! Why don't they come
And put him into bed? Why don't they come?
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“Disabled” Symbols
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Darkness and Night
Darkness and night in "Disabled" symbolize a kind of oblivion, and with it the absence of emotional suffering. Whereas once the young man was active and full of energy, now he's in a constant state of agony because he feels incapable and alone. His injuries, he feels, have changed his life forever, and sitting by the window in the hospital only accentuates this feeling. His waking hours are therefore spent "waiting for dark," which at least represents a brief respite from his bleak, monotonous reality.
The darkness of night can also represent another, more extreme absence: the loss of life itself. The poem strongly implies that the young man has shorn off many years of his life because of his injuries, so "waiting for dark" also hints at his anticipation of his own death. If sleeping is his only comfort, then death will be as comfortable as he could possibly get.
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“Disabled” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Alliteration
The alliteration in "Disabled" adds emphasis to the language, calling attention to certain words and often linking them together to suggest some kind of connection. Take, for instance, the alliteration of the /w/ sound in line 1:
He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark.
This spotlights both "wheeled" and "waiting," subtly linking the man's wheelchair (and, thus, the injury that put him in that wheelchair) to stillness and "waiting" around. The poem implies that he has lost his independence, so things only happen to him. Most of his time, then, is spent sitting in his chair trying to tolerate the monotony of doing nothing.
In line 2, the alliterative /g/ sound is quite noticeable:
And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,
This adds intensity to the language, underlining the idea that the soldier dislikes his hospital-issued "suit," which he thinks is "ghastly." In this way, this moment of alliteration helps readers sense the young man's frustration and unhappiness with his current circumstances.
The sibilance in line 33 in the phrase "smart salutes" helps highlight the soldier's romanticized ideas about going to war. The hissing /s/ draws attention to the image of a disciplined and good-looking soldier giving a superior a strong, sharp salute—and this, in turn, hints that the young man only really thought about how he would look as a soldier, not necessarily what it would feel like to be on the battlefield.
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Assonance
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Caesura
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Consonance
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End-Stopped Line
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Juxtaposition
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Metaphor
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Polysyndeton
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Repetition
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Rhetorical Question
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Simile
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“Disabled” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Gay
- Glow-lamps
- Queer
- Silly For
- Brace
- Peg
- Kilts
- Giddy Jilts
- His Lie
- Hilts
- Plaid
- Care of Arms
- Leave
- Pay Arrears
- Esprit de Corps
- Hints
- Drafted Out
- Solemn
- Institutes
- Dole
Gay-
Happily.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Disabled”
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Form
"Disabled" has six stanzas of varying length. For instance, stanza 5 only has three lines, whereas stanza 4 is made up of 16. As such, although some of the stanzas are the same length (like stanzas 2, 3, and 6), the poem as a whole doesn't correspond to a traditional form.
This adds a feeling of fluidity that matches the man's state of mind; in the same way that the poem shifts, his thoughts expand and contract as he comes in and out of sleep while longing for his pre-war life. The man feels that his body and life have been broken forever, and the disjointed form of the poem reflects this. The shifting nature of this structure also mirrors the way that the man's thoughts bounce back and forth between the present and the past.
There is a circularity to the form, too. The opening stanza depicts the young man as alone and on the margins of society. The last stanza does the exact same thing: he wishes someone would come and put him to bed, but nobody comes. The poem thus ends with the same sense of isolation with which it began.
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Meter
Generally speaking, "Disabled" sticks to iambic pentameter throughout. This means the lines are made up of five feet consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (five da-DUMs). Line 2 is a good example of this:
And shiv-| ered in | his ghast-| ly suit | of grey,
This gives the poem a gentle, almost monotonous feeling of momentum that evokes the slow passage of time. All the young man can do is wait for something to happen, and the sheer length of the poem—and its meter—helps the reader imagine this feeling of boredom and stillness.
But the poem is also full of metrical variation. For instance, there are some lines in which there are six stresses instead of five, which is the case in line 10:
In the old times, before he threw away his knees.
This extra stress—along with the clunky rhythm it creates—might be a deliberate strategy to make the poem feel stilted and stuck, representing the young man's own immobility. On an even more basic level, longer lines like this one feel slower because they quite literally take longer to read!
Other variations have more tangible effects. The two "Voices" at the start of lines 4 and 5 are both trochees (stressed-unstressed), inverting the iambic rhythm and, in doing so, calling attention to the sound of the boys having fun outside. Or, as another example, the use of a spondee (stressed-stressed) in line 19 adds extra emphasis to the man's intense memory of getting injured:
And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race
The doubly-stressed "hot race" helps convey the terrifying urgency of this moment, when the young man's wound opened up and the blood gushed out as if in a "race." The poem's use of meter thus helps accentuate important images while also simply controlling the rhythm and pacing of the language.
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Rhyme Scheme
"Disabled" uses rhyme throughout, but it doesn't follow a perfectly consistent rhyme scheme. Interestingly, Owen's handwritten draft of the poem shows that he was marking the scheme in the first stanza but stopped doing so soon after. The unpredictability of the rhymes perhaps represents the young man's difficulty with moving on his own—if the rhymes flowed too easily, this might make the poem feel too fluid and nimble.
Most words in the poem have a rhymed match, sometimes supporting the juxtaposition between the soldier's pre- and post-war life. In the first stanza, for example, the man longs for "dark" while others play in the "park"; he wears "grey," while others enjoy the sunshine of the "day," and so on. Interestingly, though, "hands" in line 12 doesn't have a rhymed match. Perhaps this underlines the fact that the touch of girls' hands is truly gone forever (though this draft shows that initially there was a rhyme for this line).
Elsewhere, the word "fruits" in line 38 creates a rhyme with "institutes" in line 40. This means that the rhyme reaches over the stanza break between stanzas 5 and 6. This is a perfect representation of the poem's messy, imperfect use of rhyme, giving it a cohesive yet disjointed feeling that aligns with the fact that the soldier still exists in the world but has trouble engaging with it—he can enjoy "fruits," that is, but he has to do so from the depressing and isolated environment of "institutes."
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“Disabled” Speaker
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The speaker of "Disabled" functions as a third-person omniscient narrator. This means the speaker can not only describe the things happening around the young man, but also shed light on how the man feels and what he thinks. The poem often delves into the man's memories of pre-war life, his trauma from the war, and his bleak reality in the present—the speaker's omniscience makes it possible for readers to completely immerse themselves in the young man's experience. This, in fact, seems to be the poem's primary aim: to shed light on a neglected point of view.
This was an important aim of Owen's poetry more generally. He wanted to tell the truth about war and its aftermath. The speaker's tone is overwhelmingly negative, portraying the way the young man has been marginalized by his injuries. The speaker's omniscience also allows the poem to show the man's thought processes, like when he tries to figure out why he went to war in the first place:
He thought he'd better join. He wonders why.
Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts.
That's why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg,
Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts,
He asked to join. He didn't have to beg;These are thoughts in motion, portraying the young man's inner monologue. The poem ends using a similar technique, highlighting the man's state of isolation:
How cold and late it is! Why don't they come
And put him into bed? Why don't they come?These desperate rhetorical questions—and the preceding sentence—come straight from the disabled soldier's own perspective. There is, then, a slight merging of the speaker and the young man's point of view, such that the speaker momentarily becomes the wounded soldier. And this just make it easier for readers to feel what the man himself feels.
It's worth noting that some contemporary critics question whether Owen portrays disability in an unfair light, since the poem could be seen as denying any possibility that someone like the poem's main figure could lead a valuable, fulfilling existence. This is a very valid point. Even so, though, Owen's main goal most likely wasn't to disparage people with disabilities, but to critique the horrors of war and the wider society that sent so many young men hurtling toward life-altering violence.
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“Disabled” Setting
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The poem is set somewhere in the United Kingdom after World War I. Like the central character, the setting is kept relatively generic, giving the poem a universal quality—as though it could happen in any number of places across the country. That said, the reference to kilts and plaid socks might suggest that the soldier is Scottish, meaning that he would likely be recuperating in Scotland.
On a literal level, the poem is set in a cold, darkening room in some kind of hospital or recovery institution. This helps create multiple juxtapositions: between inside and outside the institution, between the soldier's pre- and post-war life, and between the soldier and the rest of society. He is indoors—alone—while the rest of the world carries on without him beyond the hospital walls. This builds a sense of despair and isolation that comes across in the fact that he hears children playing outside and thinks of the noise as a "saddening" "hymn" instead of a happy, joyous sound.
But the poem also takes place in the young man's mind (despite the third-person perspective). Flitting back and forth between visions of pre-war life and the reality of the present, the setting showcases just how much he feels he has lost. The past, in this case, is a kind of distant land.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Disabled”
Literary Context
As with many of his poems, Wilfred Owen wrote "Disabled" while convalescing at the Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1917. At the time, Owen was being treated for shell shock, which is now referred to as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The importance of Owen's stay in Craiglockhart with regard to his poetry can hardly be overstated. It was here that he met Siegfried Sassoon, probably Owen's only equal in terms of World War I poetry fame.
The elder Sassoon had an encouraging and nurturing influence on Owen's writing. Both poets were committed to using poetry as a vehicle for truth, exposing the realities of life on the front line, and undoing the empty, jingoistic ideas found in the work of poets like Jessie Pope ("Who's For the Game?") and Rupert Brooke ("The Soldier").
"Disabled" is not as well-known as Owen's poems "Anthem for Doomed Youth" or "Dulce et Decorum Est," but it's just as unflinching in its portrayal of war and its traumatizing effects. It was this poem that another fellow war poet, Robert Graves, saw as evidence of Owen's immense poetic talent—though he also said the poem was full of metrical "outrages," too (Owen was relatively inexperienced compared to Graves). Beyond his immediate contemporaries, Owen was also heavily influenced by the Romantic poets—John Keats in particular. "Disabled" poem was published posthumously in his 1920 collection; Owen died during active service shortly before the end of the war, after having recovered in Scotland in 1916 and returning to the battlefield in 1918.
Historical Context
This poem was written during (and is about) World War I, the so-called "war to end all wars." Unlike World War II, it's not quite as easy to identify the "villain" in this conflict, with events having a tragic domino effect across the European continent. The start of the war is generally agreed to be the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire (which ruled a large section of central and Eastern Europe at the time). Ferdinand's assassin, Gavrilo Princip, wanted to put an end to Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Alliances between different countries pulled in many other European nations to fight on one side or the other.
As the poem makes clear, World War I was initially met with a sense of excitement in Britain (and across Europe). Europe had been through a period of relative stability, so people had oddly romanticized ideas about going to war, thinking of it as a form of adventure. Vast numbers of young men signed up to fight—recruitment strategies even included using young, attractive women to create peer pressure; these women would give out white feathers to men still at home as a symbol of cowardice. This kind of societal pressure is most likely why the central character of "Disabled" was so eager to join the military.
But the reality of war was terrifying and deadly, and the poor conditions of the trenches caused sickness and disease. Wilfred Owen himself fought in France, part of what was called the Western Front. Having been discharged from the Craiglockhart Hospital where he wrote this—and many other—poems, he returned to the war (much to Siegfried Sassoon's disapproval). He was killed one week before the Armistice (the truce) that was signed on November 11th, 1918. The news of his death reached his parents on the very same day that church bells rang out to signal the end of the war.
Having lived through the nightmare of the conflict itself, returning soldiers came back to a challenging new world. The economic landscape had changed considerably, and many were out of work. This poem's story is not uncommon; thousands of men returned with life-changing injuries. And many other young men, of course, didn't come home at all.
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More “Disabled” Resources
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External Resources
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Poems in Response to Owen — A BBC show in which three contemporary poets respond to Wilfred Owen's poetry.
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Learn More About War Poetry — A series of podcast documentaries from the University of Oxford about various aspects of World War I poetry, including some excellent material specifically about Wilfred Owen.
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More Poems and Bio — A valuable resource of Owen's other poetry, and a look at his life.
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The Poem Out Loud — A reading by Youtuber Tom O'Bedlam.
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Bringing WWI to Life — In this clip, director Peter Jackson discusses his recent WWI film, They Shall Not Grow Old. Though technology, Jackson brings old war footage to vivid life, restoring a sense of the soldiers as actual people.
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Post-War Life — A short clip examining the treatment of returning WW1 soldiers.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Wilfred Owen
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