Voice in "Futility"

Paper Summary:

In this essay, the voice of the narrator in Wilfred Owen's World War I poem "Futility" is explicated. Three of the aspects of the poet/narrator's voice that are examined are his gentleness, his tiredness, and his anger. Each of these qualities is used to show the fuller picture of the poem and of what Owen is trying to say and describe about death, war, and the world in which he lived.

From the Paper:

"In the chapter of 'Introduction to Literature, Criticism, and Theory' on the topic of voice, Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle make the claim that literature is "the space in which, more than anywhere else, the power, beauty and strangeness of the voice is both evoked and bodied forth". The point that is being made is that in literature, the voice being used to give the information, to tell the tale, to speak to the reader is much more important than the voice used on a cereal box or in a car owner's manual. The person or persons who are the voice are just as much a part of the reading experience as the letters on the page are. As Bennett and Royle add, "reading literary texts involves hearing extraordinary voices"."

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