Meghan Jennings

English 202

May 1, 2014

Discovering Truth

Wilfred Owen’s poem “Strange Meeting” delves into the internal struggles of a man

plagued by the atrocities of war and its consequences on his perceptions of his experiences. The

poetic form Owen used, the heroic couplet, is characterized by rhyming pairs of lines, a general

use of iambic pentameter, and “high” subject matters. These subjects include the biggest ideas

and issues the human mind can conceive, such as existence, human struggle, God, and so on.

Staying true to the heroic couplet’s form of higher subject matter, Owen’s poem discusses war,

conflict, and the wrongs committed by men. He shapes the poem using slant rhyme, revolving

much of the poem around the meaning behind one of the most significant words: truth. Of the 14

Oxford English Definitions for the word, the meaning most relevant to the poem refers to truth as

“The fact or facts; the actual state of the case; the matter or circumstance as it really is.” With

this definition in mind, the actual state of war can be examined through the lens of the two

soldiers in Hell. This lens connects the two in the pain, terror, and struggles felt because of the

war: one which leaves countless men to deal with the remnants of their wounds, both internal

and external. The poem seeks to unveil the truth of the brutal reality, grief, and destruction

caused by battle. Owen’s use of the word “truth” and the descriptions made by the stranger in the

poem both emphasize the futility of battle, the sorrow of time lost, and the nature of life that

continually goes on.

The poem begins when the narrating soldier is killed in battle, travels down a dark tunnel

to Hell, and has an unforeseen encounter with a man he killed in the war. The stranger tells him

that even in the afterlife there are reasons to mourn: for a life devoid of hope and for wasted

time, both having to do with the true reality of war. The stranger emphasizes the value of time in

the following metaphor, in which the beauty in living life “…lies not calm in eyes, or braided

hair,/ But mocks the steady running of the hour,” (lines 19 – 20). Neither peace nor love are the

most important aspects in life, but rather the “running of the hour,” which implies the value of

time and the nature of its hasty departure. Both love and peace are high subject matters,

important in their own ways and worthy of mention. However, Owen is saying that these

elements are ephemeral, and will come and go throughout one’s lifetime. Time, on the other

hand, is the one thing that remains constant. It is the one thing that cannot be created, taken back,

or revisited: it can only be used up. The monumentality of this tragedy plays into Owen’s

definition of truth, the fact of the matter, because none of the living has realized the uselessness

of war. As a result, the time of the stranger, the soldier, and all of the men still alive and fighting

is wasted.

The word “truth” in itself can be taken many ways, which means the way Owen’s poem

is read can impact the meaning of the poem. A few general ideas behind “truth” involve themes

such as politics, religion, matters of the heart, or social justice. Because the most appropriate

definition for this poem states that truth is the actual state of the case, it causes the reader to

imagine its only other option: lies, deceit, and fictions. Lines 22-25 help to explain this:

For of my glee might many men have laughed

And of my weeping something had been left,

Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,

The pity of war, the pity war distilled.

The stranger begins by saying that even though the conditions of war were horrendous, he still

valued his time left on Earth. The stranger’s “glee” at living during the war would have been

seen as a joke to the other men, as the conditions of war were atrocious. For the other men, death

may have been preferable to fighting in the war. The stranger’s happiness during the war was

because he still had time left to live. His weeping, equivalent to the wisdom of experience, gave

him knowledge of the pain and uselessness of war. This experiential knowledge is what the

stranger leaves in the living world: the “truth untold.” Now in Hell, he is unable to tell the living

about the “pity of war”: that it causes unnecessary sorrow and ultimately resolves nothing. In

addition, the tragedy and pity of war emerges when the narrating soldier kills the stranger. Both

men were told by their nations that the other man was “the enemy,” even though the two men

realize they have more in common than they originally thought. Their unforeseen camaraderie

while in Hell suggests that the stranger, and now the soldier, see the flaws in war that the nations

do not. Their countries do not see or choose to recognize the personal loss among ordinary

citizens: a pervasive, hovering sadness in wars among battling nations. In talking with the

narrator who killed him, the stranger compares the dark sides of themselves, the pain they both

went through, and the tragedy of having to withhold the truth of their ordeals. The stranger chose

to keep his opinions to himself, not wanting to attack the nation’s decision to go to war by

revealing his own weaknesses and pain from both external and internal battle scars. The decision

to withhold this information from the ones who needed to hear it most resulted in even greater

anguish of the dead stranger: even he, like the nations, was unable to reveal the truth.

As mentioned before, the definition relevant to Owen’s poem involves reality, facts, and

the actual state of what something is, which in this case, is war. The ideas behind this particular

definition of truth in its regard to battle brings to mind harsh wartime environments, unpleasant

living conditions, unhappy and dissatisfied men, and brutal warfare. The definition also calls

into question why the men are fighting in the first place. The legitimacy of the nations’ goals are

unclear to the men; what the nations are trying to accomplish by making the soldiers endure the

bitter realities of war is hidden from them: the ones who most need to know why. Owen

addresses the issues of truth in wartime in lines 34-39:

Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,

I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,

Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.

I would have poured my spirit without stint

But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.

Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.

The stranger begins by saying he would have used the wisdom he gained from his wartime

experience to wipe the metaphorical blood stains off of those who went through the same

experiences. Owen then plays on the word by saying “truths that lie,” meaning that the “truths”

spoken by their nations were really lies they fed the soldiers to convince them to fight in the

battle. In this regard, the stranger means he would reveal the truth about the war and its

circumstances to those who believe the benefit of war outweighs its cost. The second section of

lines tragically says why the stranger felt unable to tell the men that the war was wrong. Showing

his emotional and physical scars would have caused the men to lose respect for him, and they

would not have listened. In addition, he withheld his thoughts because the war was almost at its

end, and convincing the soldiers of the war’s futility would ultimately be ineffectual.

There are many words in Owen’s poem that relate to one another, which also contribute

to the importance of the word “truth.” Some include war, men, Hell, blood, world, hope, and life.

Looking at this lexical group reveals how the words are interrelated: how war and truth aren’t

always synonymous, and how blood and wounds are not only aspects of the afterlife in Hell, but

are also the sufferings of men in the living world. Truth is critical to this poem, not only because

it provides insight to the state of war and its atrocities, but also for the contrasting truths, the lies,

and the false assumptions associated with it. In this case, what truth is and what it is not are both

essential to understanding what is happening in Owen’s poem.

The prominence of truth in “Strange Meeting” highlights the struggles both the soldier

and the stranger endured not only during the war, but after they had escaped into death. In their

afterlives, they both end up in Hell, where they can relate the experiential hell of fighting in the

war with each other. Of the many subjective and objective meanings behind truth, the ultimate

reality, horror, and tragic futility of war is was what Wilfred Owen tries to convey to the reader.

For everything said and heard about war, truth can bring forth the reality of a horrible situation:

the lies of nations, the individual’s real experience of terror, violence, and emotional trauma, and

the mutual inability to reveal what should be told. Truth has the unique and powerful ability to

reveal what is not said. Expressing the true experiences that soldiers went through in troubled

times can lead to a world of truth: one with less conflict and more hope.