His faith in religion was strong in his youth, a "simple evangelical faith he shared with his mother." (Hibberd, 5) This conviction failed him, though, as he got older and began to explore poetry, in which he held his version of Truth that he could not reconcile with God. In the teachings of his youth, and in his stint as a lay assistant in Dunsden, he must have built the foundation that he would both expand on when confronted with the unimaginable and fight against when immersed in the absolute horror of war.

The beginning of the war found Owen in France, but as a tutor rather than as a soldier. In June of 1914, he was tutoring and vacationing with family of actor Alfred Leger in the Pyrennes. He had met Laurent Tailhade, a poet known in the French s

The surprise failed. Despite an efficient attack, the return fire was horrible. Owen attempted to cross on a raft after the bridge and most of the company had been destroyed. He was shot and killed on the water. His battalion and the 2cnd Manchesters went on to achieve their goal by moving downstream to a weaker area. Owen was buried in Ors with a piece of his poetry on his gravestone. His family received a telegram at noon on November 11, 1918, Armistice day. (H. Owen, v.III, 201)

Dr. Arthur Brock worked with Owen to help him utilize his far past to overcome the recent past. He used Owen's ability and desire for writing to help him help him unite an artist and a soldier. A proponent of ergotherapy, Brock set up activities for communal work and field trips. Sent with other patients to work in a nearby boarding school, Owen chose literature to teach, rather than more soldierly skills as map reading or first aid. (Hibberd, 29) He also assumed editorship of the hospital's literary magazine, The Hydra. When Siegfried Sasson arrived in July, he was placed in the unwilling place of mentor as Owen brought all his work to him for critique. Though Sasson may have been irritated, his influence on Owen's work is clear. He pushed the young man off of his Romantic centered world and asked him to confront the war, not play with art. "Now Brock had shown him how to control his phantoms and Sassoon had shown him how to use them in the cause of peace." (Hibberd, 52-3) His writing flourished, in the three months he was in direct contact with Sasson he drafted over a dozen poems. (Hibberd, 51)

The disruptive effects of war on the natural order are shown through contrasts between the soldiers and the garden. The bees are compared to the soldiers and parody them by their "assaulting and fumbling the flowers" (23). Bees assault flowers to the benefit of the flowers. Men assault men in battle to the detriment of the other. Where the assault of the bees brings life, men with guns bring death. A second comparison is implied between the fresh cleanliness of the garden, whose "Japonica / glistens like coral" and the soldier's guns with their need for "daily cleaning" (4-5, 2). The ironic contrast is that the garden, grounded in dirt, is effortlessly clean while the soldiers must clean their guns repeatedly. The structure of the poem also serves to make the comparison to nature's advantage. Each stanza is split between the dry, unimaginative language of the first speaker, presumably the drill sergeant and the poetic language used by the second speaker, perhaps one of the men in the squad, to describe nature. The use of repetition and near-repetition of phrases is ironic due to the placement of the repeated phrases in very different contexts. In each instance, nature is shown to be better at the same activities. The instructor insists that the men "not let [him] / see anyone using his finger" (14-15). At the end of the same stanza, the blossoms are seen "never letting anyone see / any one of them using their finger" (17-18). Although not explicitly stated in the poem, perhaps the soldiers should take a cue from the blossoms and not use their fingers, especially not on the trigger. The garden is repeatedly shown to have that which "in our case we have not got" (12, 28). While the soldiers fondle their guns and "slide it rapidly backwards and forwards" to no productive end, the bees fly "rapidly backwards and forwards" pollinating (21, 22). The sexual imagery associated with the soldiers and their guns further establishes the contrast between them and nature. The use of "the boltK to open the breech" is evocative of a rape (19-20). This is supported by making the requisite "strength" rather than care (16, 26). The soldiers' ability to grab the bolt and "slide it rapidly backwards and forwards" is blatantly suggestive of masturbation (21). They even "call this / easing the spring" (21-22). As the last stanza states "it is perfectly easy / if you have any

Some common words found in the essay are:
Wilfred Owen, Adam Fall, Lord God, British French, Eden Greek, Siegfried Sasson, Brock Owen, Laurent Tailhade, Englishmen Letter, School Shrewsbury, silent eloquent, et decorum, dulce et, dulce et decorum, et decorum est, decorum est, rapidly backwards forwards, using finger, backwards forwards, figurative language, fragile motionless, rapidly backwards, / using, / using finger, slide rapidly backwards,
Approximate Word count = 3450
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page double spaced)