The Chances Analysis

I mind as 'ow the night afore that show
Us five got talking, -- we was in the know,
"Over the top to-morrer; boys, we're for it,
First wave we are, first ruddy wave; that's tore it."
"Ah well," says Jimmy, -- an' 'e's seen some scrappin' --
"There ain't more nor five things as can 'appen;
Ye get knocked out; else wounded -- bad or cushy;
Scuppered; or nowt except yer feeling mushy."

One of us got the knock-out, blown to chops.
T'other was hurt, like, losin' both 'is props.
An' one, to use the word of 'ypocrites,
'Ad the misfortoon to be took by Fritz.
Now me, I wasn't scratched, praise God Almighty
(Though next time please I'll thank 'im for a blighty),
But poor young Jim, 'e's livin' an' 'e's not;
'E reckoned 'e'd five chances, an' 'e's 'ad;
'E's wounded, killed, and pris'ner, all the lot --
The ruddy lot all rolled in one.  Jim's mad.

.: 'The Chances Wilfred Owen :.

Owen writes a monologue in the vernacular of the British Tommy. He is imitating the speech using colloquialisms and the stuttered utterances of an everyday conversation. It sometimes sounds a little forced towards the end of the first stanza 'except you're feeling mushy' but this does not stop the poem from delivering a powerful message of the consequences of battle. The phrase 'he's livin' and he's dead' echoes the feelings we all have about losing our minds. Shell shock was not understood or accepted as a clinical illness and men were punished and executed for 'feigning' illness when really - like Jim - they were 'mad.' The five 'things that can happen' - knocked out, wounded badly or lightly, killed or just feeling 'mushy' are superceded by the horrors of the second stanza. 'Blown to chops' like meat on a butcher's slab, being disabled by losing 'both props,' taken as a prisoner of war or escaping the carnage and wishing for a 'blighty' a wound that is not fatal but serious enough to get you sent home do not compare with the awful fate of Jim who will be all of these 'rolled in one' - 'Jim's mad.' There is no spirituality or sentiment in the poem. It is a matter of fact account of trench warfare. It disturbs us because of the 'jolly' way such macabre subjects are discussed. We are unnerved by this acceptance of the soldiers' fates and recognise the awful fates that faced these men. There are strong links with Owens’s more somberly expressed poem 'Disabled' where the language and style is as dark as the subject matter.
Bez Berry

| Posted on 2008-05-01 | by a guest