Mental Cases by Wilfred Owen

Music creates a tone of despair so that the listener understands what shellshock is and its effects on the human body. There are close-ups and long-shots of the patients scared of the word bomb or shaking really badly and cowering at the sight of an army uniform. The poem uses personification such as ‘memory fingers in their hair of murders’ this describes that they are tearing their out thinking they are going to get bombed as they constantly have the ringing of bombs in their ears.

It is also a shocking recount detailing the effects of war. Previously called ‘The Deranged’ this has vivid imagery of the highest order – encouraging empathy from the reader. Written in Craiglockhart this seems to be about the horrors that he saw there portraying the negative impact and mental derailment that the war caused. He shows the victims to be disconnected from society as thier words have become distorted. The use of ‘twilight’ shows the time of dreams and nightmares that Owen often portrays in his poetry. The break between day and night is reminiscent of purgatory, the communication between life and death. It also provides the cover of darkness for these people physically and mentally deranged.

The poets use of rhetoric in the opening stanza also hints at the state that these men are after their time in the trenches. The rhetorical question shows how, to even Owen, that these men are somewhat unrecognisable because of what they have been living like in the trenches.

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