Wilfred Owen's "Disabled"
...isabled.” This is an intentionalist position in that he is suggesting Owen is trying to be like the other famous authors (Hibberd 113). Hibbert suggesting that Owen’s use of the color purple, plays into the popular use of using purple to portray romance: “implication of youthful sexuality and sacrifice” (Hibberd 113), providing another intentionalist interpretation. Hibbert suggests that Owen is intending to be like other authors (113). Further more, towards the end of his interpretation, Hibbert mentions similar themes in recruiting posters and explains their relationship to the events that took place around Owen (114). Moving forward with some mimetic interpretations, Hibbert suggests that the first line of the third stanza: “ There was an artist silly for his face,” (Owen 152) is a description of a girl wanting the man, in the poem. Hibberd continues with this familiar situation through explaining what line 25 of the poem is saying: “ Someone had said he’d look a god in kilts”(Owen 152). Hibberd explains the common understanding of a woman appreciating a man in uniform (113). Hibberd moves on to closely relate this with a mimetic interpretation of what Owen meant by “guild shilts.” Hibberd suggests that this implied a woman persuaded the man to volunteer for war. After this interpretation, Hibberd makes his claim that Owen is commenting on women in his society: “The poem can be read as both a bitter comment on the role of women in role time…” (113). Herbert concludes that Owen is blaming women for influencing men into negative situations. Similar to Hibbert’s interpretation, Kerr’s interpretation is also an intentionalist one. Kerr starts off by proposing that Owen is intending to restore meaning to the word disabled (296). Moving on, like Hibberd, Kerr refers to other famous authors of Owen’s time including Harrold Nanro, Sassoon, and Craiglocckhart, pointing out that Owen is trying to write like them. Specifically, he comments on Owen’s use of “dark” in the opening line of the poem: “But the next phrase ‘waiting for dark,’ opens another dimension, placing the human figure in that generic historical twilight that so often bathed the late romantic poetry Owen had come to admire,”(Kerr, 297). Later, in his interpretation, Kerr presents information about letters Owen wrote expressing his content with being with his children. This connects to the fourth line of Owen’s poem: “Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn”(152). Later in Kerr’s interpretation, Kerr points out an emotional quality in mentioning Owen having protective feelings for his brother. Suggesting a more personal motive in writing “ Disabled.” In addition to Kerr’s intentionalist point of view, Kerr also has makes some mimetic and pragmatic understandings. He mentions that the man mentioned in the poem has to be a young adult in a negative environment: “Here the young man grown unnaturally old is helpless in a world which is as the Decadents felt the actual world to be …- grey, darkening, chilling, futureless,”(297). Kerr’s mimetic interpretation is also evident in his explanation of the sixth line in the poem: “ She it is who puts a stop to the boys for her gathering of her charges is also a segregation, taking them form the common ground and company of others” (Kerr, 298). In both explanations, Kerr is giving his meaning to what Owen’s words are saying. Moving on, Kerr gives pragmatic observations to comment on Owen’s claim in the poem. Kerr suggests that Owen is expressing that women are in no way responsible for the disabled man’s position. Women have no power over men, their choices are strictly on their own accord: “ Although he has been some how been manipulated into going to war, the boy has gone willingly, collaborating his own downfall,” (Kerr, 306). Overall, meshing Kerr’s pragmatic, mimetic and intentionalist interpretations illustrate his understanding of how Owen is writing about himself. There are areas of interpretation that should be explored further. In particular, a formalist interpretation could raise the question of whether “Disabled” is actually a poem or if it is more of a personal journal of Owe...