Sound Symbolism Poetry

Wilfred Owen: Exposure extract
1 Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us ...
2 Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent ...
3 Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient ...
4 Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,
5 But nothing happens

Owen manipulates the use of his vowel lengths to explore the forever changing conditions soldiers faced during World War 1. Line one contains short sharp sounding vowels, "iced" for example creates a blunt atmosphere surrounding the readers imagination whilst picturing the conditions dictated in this poem. Not only does the short vowel create a cold air about the poem, it also symbolises the brutality involved and what Owen himself endured.

When read, this line also has clever control of sibilance. The use of the consonants constant "s" sound in "merciless iced east" creates dangerous imagery as a representation of the exact same conditions in WW1. The "s" is a trademark alarming sound as a result of its presence in words like snake, an animal feared by many. For the reader making such sounds means a fast high energy pace, symbolising a busy and dangerous environment.

Completely contrasting is line 3's "drooping" the long vowel changes the mood of the poem from high sharp energy to a deep dark symbolism of night. The long vowel makes the readers rhythm slow considerably, instead of the sharp blunt sounding short vowels the long vowel stretches, which calms the atmosphere and therefore the energy of the poem, making an effective way of symbolising the night, specifically symbolising silence.

Wilfred Owen: Anthem For Doomed Youth extract
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

This extract is riddled with onomatopoeia creating vast amounts of sound symbolism as a result. Firstly, Owen uses "rattle" to describe vividly the sound the speaker is experiencing at this moment in the poem, which happens to be the disturbing noise of riffles firing. The harsh tones created by the sound imagery helps the reader understand the symbolism of the WW1 poem considerably more and understand how disturbing/mind altering it must have been for those involved. Accompanying the onomatopoeia is once again the presence of a short vowel, the sound produced by a rifle is quick and sharp so to perfectly replicate this noise in writing the same sound should be made lexically, therefore a short vowel which speeds the pace and creates a choppy rhythm is perfect in "rattle" making it ever so easy for the reader to create the sound when spoken and therefore the imagery the poem entails.

Another example of sound imagery is "wailing". Owen gives the noun human characteristics to create a terrifying air, a wail is an awful cry heard typically when someone is in great pain, it is arguable that the presence of such a word in a traumatic poem should  not be taken literally, it is possible that as a result of shell shock, the speaker is hearing the cry of dying men and has mentally designated this to the constant intensity of bombardment and fighting produced in war, either way the trauma this would create has been channelled through to the onomatopoeia which creates the same sound imagery. The long vowel sound created by "ai" adds to the ordeal as this drags the word out considerably. A wail is not a short cry, it's an exhausting lengthy howl of pain, so to replicate the same needs to be said lexically. To draw out the vowel in tern elongates the word when spoken, this makes the reader feel the enduring suffering felt by the soldiers, symbolising perfectly the ordeal of such agony.