Mental Cases Analysis

Who are these?  Why sit they here in twilight?
Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,
Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish,
Baring teeth that leer like skulls' tongues wicked?
Stroke on stroke of pain, -- but what slow panic,
Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?
Ever from their hair and through their hand palms
Misery swelters.  Surely we have perished
Sleeping, and walk hell; but who these hellish?

-- These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished.
Memory fingers in their hair of murders,
Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.
Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,
Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter.
Always they must see these things and hear them,
Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,
Carnage incomparable and human squander
Rucked too thick for these men's extrication.

Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented
Back into their brains, because on their sense
Sunlight seems a bloodsmear; night comes blood-black;
Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh
-- Thus their heads wear this hilarious, hideous,
Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses.
-- Thus their hands are plucking at each other;
Picking at the rope-knouts of their scourging;
Snatching after us who smote them, brother,
Pawing us who dealt them war and madness.

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Yeeeah I dont think it's about anger. It's about sorrow and regret that the men had to become such animals. "Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter"
Comparison of the soldiers before and after the psychological effects of the war is used here to emphasises the effects of the war

| Posted on 2008-05-07 | by a guest

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Very thorough but I believe that you are incorrect on one matter only. For one thing the tone of the poem is not "anger" throughout the entire poem, only in the last stanza. Also one of the main ideas of the poem is how dieing in war is horrid, yet there are more horrid things still. Wilfred Owne tells us that, not only did we kill so many young men by sending them to war, but perhaps we have dealt the ones who survived an even worse fate than death.

| Posted on 2007-11-10 | by a guest

.: www.ulster.ac.uk/thisisla :.

This poem was written to illustrate the effect of the war on the participating soldiers. The subjects of the poem are inmates in a military hospital. Macabre word choice is apparent throughout, for example, "Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander". By this approach the poet is hoping to make a distinct impression on the reader and it also reflects his intense passion about his opposition to the war. The subjects of the poem are almost blaming the rest of us for allowing what has happened to occur. They are now doomed to relive the terrible acts that they have witnessed on the battlefield. The mood of the poem is one of anger; this is shown overtly and covertly throughout.
The first verse attempts to give a description of how these ‘Mental Cases’ look, introducing us to the men the war has created. Through various rhetorical questions, he leads us into asking how these men came to be as they are now. The use of ellipsis illustrates this - "But who these hellish?".
The second verse illustrates the causes of the men’s madness, linking it with combat in the war. The poetry here is filled with emotion and shocking detail. "Shatter of flying muscles". The poet tries to suggest the humanness of the victims, as opposed to the thought of them purely as statistics. "Treading blood from lungs that loved laughter". The line "Memories finger in their hair of murders" is a metaphor that compares their memories to a woman, a femme fatale, whose deadly embrace smothers them from within, where they cannot escape. "Always they must see these things and hear them".
In the final verse he brings the last two verses together, now that we know both cause and consequence and the last line sums up the theme of the poem "Pawing up who dealt them war and madness". The poet again brings up the subject of collective guilt, making clear that by not stopping the war we become responsible for the results. "Snatching after us who smote them, brother"
Allow me now to focus on some particular lines in the poem. "Thus their heads wear this hilarious, hideous awful falseness of set-smiling corpses" This line suggests how although these men smile, it is just a sarcastic & ironic smile which hides what they really feel. Also note, if you will, the use of alliteration. In the lines "Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented…. Sunlight seems a blood smear" The men are trying to escape away from the memories, retreating from parts of their minds where they can maybe forget. "Surely we have perished sleeping" on the surface appears to say that the ‘Mental Cases’ are like figments of our nightmares, but the deeper meaning maybe, that while we lay safely in our beds these men will live in death for ever more. "Rucked too thick for these men’s extrication", tells us how the minds of these men have given way under the strain of the horrors they have witnessed.
This poem is a shocking reminder of the mental toll of the war. If ever there was a war poem that reflected the war in its writing style then this is it. The horrific language tries to breed horrific thoughts in our own minds and succeeds again and again.


| Posted on 2007-05-08 | by a guest