1. Futility By Wilfred Owen
LO: To understand the poem Futility
To write PEELA paragraphs on the poem

2. Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War.
He is famous for his shocking, realistic war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare.
He was killed in 1918 just one week before the end of the War.

3. Word War I,
Life in the Trenches:

4. Homework
Research further what life was like for a soldier during World War I. You should have some notes on the subject and be ready to talk about it confidently.
Due: Wednesday 28 November

5. Move him into the sun – Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields half-sown. Always it woke him, even in France, Until this morning and this snow. If anything might rouse him now The kind old sun will know.
He needs help to move- why?
He was probably a farmer before a soldier.
France = WWI battlefields
Personification- the sun is seen as a friend.

6. The sun woke the earth before- but it’s unable to help the soldier.
Think how it wakes the seeds – Woke once the clays of a cold star. Are limbs, so dear achieved, are sides Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir? Was it for this the clay grew tall? – O what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth’s sleep at all?
The human body is important
What was the point of life if it’s thrown away?
Fatuous: foolish, unthinking
His anger shows here on the pointlessness of War.

7. Questions…
1: What is the poet’s attitude to war in the poem? Use PEELA and back up your answers with evidence from the poem. 2: What do we learn about the soldier in the poem? Use evidence from the poem. 3: Why do you think Wilfred Owen personifies the sun and mentions it throughout the poem?