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WAEC SSCE - Literature In English - 2003 (Objective)

Question 1 Report

Read the poem and answer the question

Move him into the sun
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown
Always it woke him even in France
Until this morning and this snow
If anything might rouse him now
This kind old sun will know
Think how it wakes the seeds
Woke,once, the clays of a cold star
Are limbs, so dear achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved still warm too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?

The theme of the poem is the ...of life
Answer Details
The theme of the poem is futility. The poem, "Futility" by Wilfred Owen, is about a soldier who has died in battle, and his comrades are attempting to move his body into the sun, hoping that the warmth of the sun might revive him. The speaker of the poem questions the point of life and the efforts of the sun to awaken the dead. The poem reflects the futility of war and the senseless loss of life. The final lines of the poem, "O what made fatuous sunbeams toil / To break earth's sleep at all?" highlight the theme of futility, as the speaker wonders why the sun bothers to shine at all if it cannot bring the dead back to life.
Read lesson note on Poetry (JAMB)
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