Literary Analysis Of The Poem Strange Meeting

Wilfred’s “Strange Meeting”, a novel by Wilfred, explores the extraordinary encounter between two combatants who are on opposite sides of a battle. Owen is not interested in the typical poetics that surround war. Instead, Owen creates a graphic reality balanced with compassion and sympathy for the entrenched military. The poem’s poetry is not inflated heroism, but rather a feeling of sympathy and pity towards the characters. Owen does this through his narrative as well as a device. First, Owen’s narrative, which is based around a shared humanity between speaker and stranger in the face of mortality, makes the reader feel sympathy for these young men. Second, the use of consonance, onomatopoeia and semantic connotation subtly conveys the character’s pitiful situation.

The poem opens with a soldier moving into a narrow tunnel in order to escape a battle. “It was as if I had escaped battle / Through some deep, dull tunnel.” (1-2). The tunnel has a profound quality in that it makes the world above mute. It is a surreal subterranean realm that gives the illusion that he is escaping from battle. The reader is reminded of mankind’s never-ending history of war by the tunnel, which also adds to the epic nature of the poem. “Yet also, there were sleepers who groaned in pain, / Too fast to think or die” (4-5). He has a different perspective after his separation from the battle. Soldiers in death transition are laying here, despite being a few feet away from the war. They are in a hurry to die and not disturbable, which suggests this is where they should be buried. After all, it’s more peaceful for them to die here than in the battle above. The speaker comments on the stranger after one soldier acknowledges him.

The eyes of the fixed gaze are filled with a pitiful recognition.

As if blessing, lift up your hands when you are in distress.

His smile told me that the hall was sullen.

His dead smile told me we were in Hell. (7-10)

The phrase “pitying recognition” can have many different meanings. The soldier may recognize the speaker as he stares him down (perhaps this is a foreshadowing, given the conclusion of the poem) and feel pity for his situation because he’s also caught in war. Perhaps the “fixed eye” of the soldier is itself pitiful and covered with images from the fallen. Line eight also contains many instances of “s”, resulting in a lot of consonance. The context of this consonance evokes the sound the soldiers’ troubled, shallow breaths. We have image and sound, combining semantic interpretations.

The speaker carries on speaking.

With a million pains, the face of that vision was rubbed;

The blood did not reach the top.

There was no sneering or shouting, and there was no clapping of hands.

I told my strange friend, “Here is no reason to mourn.” (11-4).

The speaker uses the word “grained” with a very important connotation. The speaker’s use of “grained” has a special meaning. One might also think of an old, grainy black-and-white photograph from WWI, in which faces are almost indiscernible. The speaker reassures the unknown that they will not be affected by the war, because the above is safe. As a result, the use of onomatopoeia to describe the battles (as best as possible by reciting the poem) brings them a certain amount of reality.

The stranger responds, “None […] except the undone year, / Hopelessness. Your hope was mine too. The soldier says that the real loss, the real cause for mourning, is the time spent in war and those years that never will come. The soldier says, “save your undone years,” almost as if he were giving a command. The last words from the soldier, “the futility,” are forced to appear on a different line. The stranger is also able to invoke the bond the two men share. Before the war, both men lived lives; only the hopes of the speaker remain.

The Stranger continues:

Men will now be content with the spoils we have left.

Or, the discontent will boil over and bloody.

The tigress will make them move quickly.

The nations will not split ranks despite their progress. (26-9)

The hopelessness of the stranger, as discussed in the paragraph above, is mythologized. It is not just his condition that makes him feel despair. He is not only depressed for himself, but also for the men who are numbed to war’s sights, sounds and tragedies. He fears that the world will become a place where people are content to accept war’s ills, and the destruction of its beauty. The stranger’s reference to the [T]igress as the river that was the foundation of mankind’s first civilizations suggests that people are accustomed to war and have become numb. Complacency will only bring more wars, as men will not challenge historical precedents and “break ranks” even when their nation is no longer prospering.

The strange soldier, in lines 30 – 39, considers what he might do if given the chance to live, to save humanity.

My mystery was courage.

I was a wise man, and I was a master of my craft:

Miss the retreat of this world

Citadels without walls are a waste of time.

When their chariot wheels were clogged with blood,

They would wash me from the sweet wells.

Even when truths are too deep to be tainted.

I would not have spared my soul

But not with wounds.

The men’s foreheads bled even where there was no injury. (30-9)

It did not bring happiness. It brought only mystery, the mystery that he would never know how old he was or what years were left. He has gained wisdom in death. In fact by using the word mastery it appears that he has mastered the art of war, and has mastered the art of ignoring the drumbeats that encourage courage. He now knows that it’s best to avoid combat and “miss the marche” to battle, as the consonance in those words conjures up the sound of soldiers marching synchronized. He would wash the bloodied chariots of the exhausted soldiers, pouring in truths and sympathy that were too deep, too human, to be tainted. It is not the physical injury that this strange soldier wants to heal. It’s the man’s wounded spirit, that he has failed to resist the blood-letting.

The estranged soldier reveals the relationship between him and the speaker in his last moments of waking:

You killed my enemy, but I’m the one you killed.

In the darkness, I recognized you: you were frowning.

Yesterday you killed me by jabbing at me.

My hands were cold and lukewarm.

Now let’s sleep. . . . (40-4)

He calls the speaker friend and enemy. The juxtaposition works well, since it highlights their unfortunate situation (perhaps even absurdity), while maintaining the original intent and integrity of the poem. It also reflects the shared humanity theme, which is the core of the poem. The plainness of these lines is a stark contrast to the rest. These words are mostly monosyllabic. Yet, the simplicity of these lines enhances their effectiveness. This plainness is an honest reminder of their condition. Even though the soldier admits to fighting back, his cold and apathetic hands prevented him from blocking out the speaker’s jabs. One does not want to call him an orator, a poet, or any other hero with a silver tongue. He was a simple man who followed his convictions. The plainness of his words allows us to imagine countless others who fought, died and gained wisdom through death. The plainness and simplicity of the lines serve to deafen, shorten, and shorten up the prose. They reflect how strange the soldier must sound in his final moments.

The poem is filled with half-rhymes and broken meters. We might find a simple scheme of rhymes too easy. Maybe the scans are supposed to make us think. It’s not right to be able to scan the lines with ease. Undoubtedly, the half-completed rhyme must reinforce “strangeness,” and the broken nature of characters’ world. The soldiers are in two worlds: the chaotic and noisy expanse of the battlefield, and the quiet sanctuary below. So, both worlds “broken” and “strange”, despite their proximity in terms of distance, differ in many ways. The only thing that is the same in both worlds is death. In the world below only, the soldiers have the time to reflect and gain new wisdom from their death. The two men first meet in this world and begin to see eachother for what they are. The strange soldier says “Let’s sleep now” as he dies (44). This statement could be interpreted as a declaration that the protagonist is also dead. However, one conclusion is unquestionable. In the heat of battle, there’s no me and you. It’s just us. Both men were war victims, and they both wished to live until tomorrow. Their meeting was a lesson in fairness, and that is what made it so strange.

Works Cited

No change is necessary.

Owen, Wilfred. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. 5th ed.Eds. Margaret Ferguson, et al. W. W. Norton & Company published the book in New York in 2005. 891-2.