Everyone knows that war has been a necessary evil since mankind has set foot on the Earth, but most people don’t understand the full scope of how horrible war can be. Wilfred Owen is a poet that experienced the horrors of war firsthand, so Owen’s personal experience allowed him to create two poems that reveal what war was like. These poems may have a similar subject, but the poems accomplish their tasks in very different ways. “The Parable of the Old Man and the Young” is an allusion to Genesis 22:1-19, but with a twist to reveal the truth about war. In “Arms and the Boy” Owens uses a more direct path to tell the reader the truth of war, which is through imagery and personification. The different literary devices used in the two poems creates a different experience for the reader, even though the end message is very similar.
In “The Parable of the Old Man and the Young,” the most prominent literary device is the allusion to the bible. Owen mirrors his poem after Genesis 22:1-19, which on the surface may lead the reader to believe that there is something good in war because Genesis has a happy ending with the son not being killed if you follow God’s orders. Owen puts a twist on the story and Abram “slew his son” (line 15). Abram is given the order from God to kill his son. Owen was able to highlight the similarities in God giving an order to Abram and a commander giving orders to his troops, with the allusion present in the poem. What’s interesting is that Owen was able to