Wilfred Owen Narrative - Greater Love

Wilfred Owen’s “Greater Love” poem includes four stanzas that start with words that are by and large connected with a woman, but toward the end of every stanza, they hold a grimmer tone. The first stanza is a particularly critical stanza since Owen utilizes the idea of the human body and human feelings to portray the destruction and death that has happened through the war. The purpose of the poem appears to be to depict a soldier’s passionate relationship to the war, outlined by Owen's utilization of imagery.

The general poem is an apostrophe. The spokesman is a soldier who speaks of war, which has been personified as a woman. We can infer this through Owens imagery, as he depicts a scene, for example, “Red lips are not so red”, and “As the stained stones kissed by the English dead”. Red lips are utilized as a signifier of enthusiastic adoration, however maybe with connotations of unlawful or indulgent sex, given that Owen alludes to the ‘Shame’ of the ‘Kindness’ between couples. The word ‘Stained’ serves to make that red color without saying it, contrasting it with the red lips of a lady, and afterward "kissed by the English dead" adds to the difference, saying that the dead dying is much more touching and passionate. These statements evoke a feeling of vulnerability, contributing to the abnormal tone of the poem. Moreover, the poem opens with the line is passing on that ‘some things are only possible to accept after witnessing them first hand’ does not exist in the war. You can never make certain about what you see. The magnificence of war, the red lips on a woman, is in reality not so wonderful, and consequently “not so red”. There is a progression of alliteration that been used in the first stanza in order to emphasize certain words or meanings like "seems shame", and "lose lure". The examples use to highlight how war is not be bewildered in any case as there is no genuine positive result. The writer is by all accounts advising that romance and sentiment seem to be superficial even with the horrors of war. This continues, as Owen says that Love's eyes pale alongside the eyes that he has "blinded in my stead".