The Last Laugh Poem Analysis

Analytical essay

It is often said that Wilfred Owen is the greatest writer of war poetry in the English language and a significant poetic voice of the twentieth century; his poems are based on his personal experience as a solider along with all suffering and affliction that came with it. The last laugh is a short, blunt poem with a harsh title. It is unlike any of Wilfred Owen’s other poems in that it is from the weapons perspective his first-hand experience of the war. He shows that the machinery of the war is the master of the soldiers and that the weapons have the last laugh. The poem successfully conveys the horror experienced on the battlefield. In this essay I will talk about how Wilfred Owen conveys his feelings on war through his

This links to the humour in lines such as how the ‘machines chuckled’ (L.4) ‘splinters spat and tittered’ and how the Bayonet ‘grinned’. Their deaths are described in a straightforward, factual style, although the fact that the third man’s face ‘kissed the mud’ (L.12) is a parody of his ‘love languid mood’ (L.11.) Each of the weapons is given its own personality. Owen has them all mocking the dead with their human voices and sense of humour in the following ways. The bullets ‘chirped’ (L.3) - a perky, bird-like sound reflecting their size and speedy flight. Machine guns ‘chuckle’ (L.4), a fatter sound than the chirp, as if amused by the event not noticing the faults. The big gun ‘guffawed’ (L.5), an uncontrollable deep laughter. The shrapnel cloud ‘gestures’ its contempt (L.9) , the dust ‘rising above’ mere death. The splinters from the shrapnel ‘spat’ and ‘tittered’, a mean, fractured sound reflecting their indiscriminate targeting of everything in sight. Shells are a rabble, a gang who

Each of the three five line stanzas has a repeating pattern, starting with the last words of the dying men and followed by the responses of the weapons which have killed them. In the structure of the poem, he uses repetition, personification, metaphors and allusion in the following way. Repetition: “In vain, vain, vain!”(L.3) Emphasizes the point that anything the soldier tries to do to defend them will be in vain, because weapons are much more powerful than them. Personification: “And the Big Gun guffawed” (L.5) the big guns are just laughing out at the humans’ pitiful stand against them. This reinforces the strength and power of a gun. Metaphor: “His whole faced kissed the mud” The soldier was hallucinating that he was near the love of his life, and by using the phrase “kissed the mud”, Owen is making reference to the possible kiss he wanted to give to his love, but instead of kissing her, he “kissed” the mud. It also can reference could also highlight/show that he fell forward face-first into the mud. Personification: “And the Bayonets´ long teeth grinned” Again Owen reinforces the idea that the weapons will always laugh last, In this case, after killing the soldier, the bayonet smiled at