STRANGE MEETING

Analysis
Xaria Rowe
Significance of The Title “Strange Meeting”
● A soldier escapes from battle in an obscure, dark tunnel, which appeared to have been
used in several wars before his.
● In this tunnel, other soldiers were found, either appearing to be asleep, groaning, or
already dead.
● The main persona awakens one of the unconscious soldiers and he
● this soldier seems to recognise our persona as he looks at him with sadness and
recognition.
● The “tunnel” in the poem where the dead soldiers lie is seen to be hell, and our
persona and the soldier are dead victims of war.
● This hypothetical “hell” was apart from the battlefield, safe from the noises of
artillery firing, seemingly a safespace with no cause to be sad.
Summary Cont

● However the second soldier explains that he moans for all of the years of their lives
gona an wasted, never to be returned.
● The soldier laments over his lost hopes and dreams of his life, taken away by the lie
of war
● There is emphasis on the truth of the war; how the truth of the horrors of war will
remain in that hell with them
● The truth of war will not be exposed and generations will continue to live in the name
of this lie and continue moving backwards.
Significance Of Title “Strange Meeting”
● The title is a direct reflection of the encounter between the two soldiers. It represents
the reconciliation between the two enemies who have come to a place of peace and
neutrality which each other, in a strange place.
● Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1817, The Revolt Of Islam- "And one whose spear had
pierced me, leaned beside, / With quivering lips and humid eyes; - and all / Seemed
like some brothers on a journey wide / Gone forth, whom now strange meeting did
befall / In a strange land."
● Laon tells his soldiers not to avenge themselves on the enemy who has massacred
their camp but to ask them to throw down their arms and embrace their shared
humanity.
Themes
● Horrors of war
● Reconciliation
● Death
Horrors of War
● Another poem in which Owen uses his writing as a protest against the atrocities of
war. The poem strips war/ being a soldier of any dignity or honour and calls war out
for what it truly represents.
● In the poem, war is destructive and violent, destroying not only the physical bodies
and lives of thousands, but also it destroys humanity. It destroys the spirit of the once
lively, robbing them of hope and of a progressive future: “ ‘save the undone years,/
The hopelessness Whatever hope is yours,/ Was my life also;” It destroys the natural
unity and solidarity humans possess for each other, despite which uniform they wore
Horrors of War Cont
● Note that while previous poems harped on the vile physicality of war, Strange
Meeting looks at what war robs us of beyond physical value (life, hope, dignity,
unity, humanity, positivity, forwardness, harmony, love)
● These values of life can only be restored with the absence of war ie reconciliation “I
am the enemy you killed my friend.” “Let us sleep now”
Reconciliation
● The events of the poem centres around the encounter between the two soldiers; this can be viewed as a
reconciliation.
● The two soldiers had previously been enemies on the battlefield, before their departure to the dark
tunnel, with the persona having killed the soldier.
● However, apart from the war, they find a peace between themselves and the soldier is able to forgive
him for his actions.
● The presence of war brings about a negativity that seeks to divide and destroy peace and humanity
which is all lost and forgotten in the eyes of war.
● On the battlefield, unity and humanity is forgotten between the two soldiers and their is only violence.
● However, on being able to escape the brutal nature of war, the two may return to humanity, and
reconcile.
Reconciliation Cont
● Owen wants war to be viewed as unnatural, and of course inhumane. The facets of
war which include violence, murder, division, dissolution of unity are aspects which
should not come naturally to humans.
● Reconciliation in this poem represents the rehabilitation and renewal that must take
place at the end of war, reforming innate human unity.
Death
● Death is a common theme within his poems; with war comes mass violent death.
● However, in Strange Meeting, death is almost seen as a morbid solution/ escape to
the horrors of war for soldiers.
● “It seemed that out of battle i escaped”- Soldiers had “escaped” to this death, where
they are granted the freedom of rest, apart from the battlefield. “Yet no blood reached
there from the upper ground,/ And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.”
● The view of death as some sort of grounds for peace for depraved soldiers adds to
Owen’s views on war, where the only place a soldier may find rest is at his death; hell
is seen as a place of reconciliation; highlights absurdity of war.
Language

Visual Imagery
● Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped/ Through granites which titanic
wars had groined.

● Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,/I would go up and wash
them from sweet wells,

● for so you frowned/ Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.

Lang
Auditory Imagery

● Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,

● And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan

Apostrophe

● The dead soldier is given life again to account for his thoughts on having given his
life for war.
● Effective in that it provides a speaker for the unheard, and the disregarded truths of
the war.
Lang Cont

Apostrophe
● Veterans are able to speak on their experience, but no accounts can be made by those
who have actually given everything for war and violence.
● Emphasises the loss of hope; it cannot be renewed or brought back to life.
Language Cont
Symbolism/ Metaphor
● The tunnel- a symbol for hell. Although the tunnel represents hell, it isn't similar to
the biblical hell in that there is no violent or physically afflicting punishments carried
out by a devil. Rather, the punishment is to suffer the consequences of war and
recognise or regain one’s own humanity (reconciling with the enemy). This hell is
also man made as a result of previous wars, again emphasising Wilfred’s views on
war. This “hell” is set apart from the roars and gore of war and the soldier calls the
other by “friend.”
Language Cont
● “Into vain citadels that are not walled” Citadels are fortresses or large castles.
However Wilfred uses it to show the uselessness of war, as a citadel without walls is
senseless. Shows that soldiers are fighting in vain.
● “I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,”- the soldier using “water” from
deep sweet wells to wash away the “blood clogged chariot wheels” is symbolic of the
heavy truth of war that is buried deep and made to be ignored. The soldier imagines
that he would use this water to wash away the lies spread about war
● “With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;’
metaphor /hyperbole for the level of trauma and fear that he has experienced, it was
permanently etched into his face.
Language Cont
● “I am the enemy you killed my friend.” oxymoron
● Alliteration
Rhyme

Pararhymes

A heroic couplet is a pair of rhyming lines that is present in a heroic poem or that relays
themes of heroism within a larger poem. However Wilson integrates this with
pararrhymes.
● Lines 19-21 end in 3 half rhymes: hair/hour/here
● escaped/scooped, groined/groaned, bestirred/stared
If Owen had used full rhyme this unease would be missing, so the imperfection perfectly
fits the surreal situation of the two men meeting in Hell. They come across as unusual,
awkward, failed rhyme scheme rather than polished and controlled. Highlights damage
and devastation. .
Metrical Analysis
● Written in iambic pentameter.

It seemed | that out | of batt- | le I | escaped

● Reflective of the relative calm of Hell in comparison to the battlefield.
● Reflects the steady, almost conversational pace of speech (reconciliation)
Metrical Analysis Cont
● There are lines that vary and these are important because they challenge the reader to
alter the emphasis on certain words and phrases.
● Courage / was mine, / and I / had mys / tery.
● Trochee ( inverted iamb) starts the line before the iambic beat takes over the rest.
● The variations bring uncertainty, and altered beats which echo battle and bring
texture and added interest for the reader
Form
● “Strange Meeting” is broken up into four stanzas of wildly varying lengths. The
longest of these is the third, which, not coincidentally, contains the dead soldier's
monologue.
● Third paragraph, 25 lines long, a lot of enjambment- story like feel, holds attention
The End
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