August 25, 2025 - English Studies

“Now Are We Cyborgs? Affinities and Technology in the Covid-19 Lockdowns” by Emily Baker and Annie Ring: Summary and Critique

“Now Are We Cyborgs? Affinities and Technology in the Covid-19 Lockdowns” by Emily Baker and Annie Ring first appeared in Lockdown Cultures: The Arts and Humanities in the Year of the Pandemic, 2020–21, edited by Stella Bruzzi, Maurice Biriotti, Sam Caleb, and Harvey Wiltshire, and published by UCL Press in 2022.

Introduction: “Now are we cyborgs? Affinities and Technology in the Covid-19 Lockdowns” by Emily Baker and Annie Ring

“Now Are We Cyborgs? Affinities and Technology in the Covid-19 Lockdowns” by Emily Baker and Annie Ring first appeared in Lockdown Cultures: The Arts and Humanities in the Year of the Pandemic, 2020–21, edited by Stella Bruzzi, Maurice Biriotti, Sam Caleb, and Harvey Wiltshire, and published by UCL Press in 2022. This chapter re-engages Donna Haraway’s influential A Cyborg Manifesto (1991) to explore how the Covid-19 lockdowns brought the hybrid condition of human-machine life into sharper focus. Baker and Ring argue that the cyborg—Haraway’s figure of feminist, technological agency—remains vital for understanding the intersectional inequalities revealed and reinforced by the pandemic, particularly through labor, care, and digital precarity (Baker & Ring, 2022, pp. 58–59). They highlight the new “cybourgeoisie” of remote workers, contrasted with keyworkers whose bodily labor and vulnerability in PPE during the crisis expose deep structural inequities (p. 60). Drawing from thinkers like Saidiya Hartman, Paul B. Preciado, and Jean-Luc Nancy, the authors frame the lockdown household as both a site of conservative retrenchment and potential technological resistance (pp. 61–63). The chapter emphasizes “affinities”—Haraway’s term for chosen solidarities—as a strategy to resist the “informatics of domination” and to reimagine community, care, and intellectual collaboration in digitally mediated spaces (pp. 64–65). In literary and cultural theory, Baker and Ring’s work significantly extends posthumanist feminist discourse, offering a critical lens on embodiment, labor, and creative production under pandemic conditions. The cyborg is no longer merely a metaphor but a lived mode of being, through which new, pluralistic ways of thinking and relating might emerge.

Summary of “Now are we cyborgs? Affinities and Technology in the Covid-19 Lockdowns” by Emily Baker and Annie Ring

🤖 Cyborgs and the Lockdown Condition

The chapter reactivates Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto in the context of the 2020 Covid-19 lockdowns, showing how the pandemic accelerated human-machine hybridity.
Haraway’s cyborg—“a hybrid of machine and organism” (Haraway, p. 149)—is reframed as central to understanding how technology mediates labor, identity, and connection in crises.

The authors argue, “The Cyborg is our ontology; it gives us our politics” (p. 150), particularly as lockdowns made us more dependent on screens, devices, and digital networks.

🧑🏽‍🔬 From ‘Sister Outsiders’ to ‘Cybourgeoisie’

The chapter contrasts privileged white-collar remote workers (the “cybourgeoisie”) with frontline keyworkers (often women and people of color), redefining who embodies the cyborg.
Historical labor contexts are invoked: “The first cyborgs were those workers whose work was systemically devalued or constructed as unskilled” (p. 60).

PPE is reimagined as a “prosthesis that enables, rather than blocks, human connection” (p. 60), challenging technophobic narratives.

🧬 Gender, Race, and Anti-Essentialist Feminism

Baker and Ring adopt Haraway’s anti-essentialist stance, stressing that cyborg identity rejects naturalized definitions of gender: “There is not even such a state as ‘being’ female” (p. 172).
Saidiya Hartman’s account of “wayward lives” (p. 60) informs their view of the cyborg as resisting historical and racialized domination.

Maria from Metropolis is cited as a prototype of the anti-essentialist cyborg—a figure that oscillates between virginity and sexual freedom (p. 60).

🏠 The Conservative Return of the ‘Household’

Lockdown re-imposed the patriarchal, surveilled “household”: “The household has landed back on us with such an almighty conservative thump” (p. 61).
The chapter warns that digital homes may become “electronic cottages” of isolation and surveillance, deepening inequality and atomization (p. 63).

Preciado’s analysis of virus-era biopolitics is used to show how domestic spaces became “new frontiers” of disciplinary power (p. 62).

💡 Technological Resistance and ‘Informatics of Domination’

Haraway’s concept of “informatics of domination” is key to analyzing how digital systems exacerbate control under capitalism (p. 61).
The authors echo Haraway: “Science and technology… are possible means of great human satisfaction as well as a matrix of complex dominations” (p. 181).

They promote critical, skillful use of technology—writing, creating, and connecting—as methods of reclaiming power from these systems.

🔗 Affinities vs. Identities

Haraway’s idea of “affinity”—“not by blood but by choice” (p. 155)—is central to their vision of cyborg politics.
They invoke Goethe’s Elective Affinities to frame household and workplace communities as fluid, experimental constellations (p. 64).

“Identities at work… can give way to affinities built across the classes created by the neoliberal university” (p. 64).

🎭 Art, Writing, and Cyborg Creativity

The cyborg is seen as an artist and writer whose tools are “the least-worst, least-surveillant platform; the webcam and mousepad” (p. 65).
Lockdown cultures—poetry, philosophy, and virtual gatherings—become arenas for “exposure”, “sharing”, and “presentation of the self” (p. 65).

The authors cite Nancy’s Inoperative Community as a model for fragile yet meaningful sociality (p. 65).

📉 Play, Work, and the Critique of Capitalism

Haraway’s phrase “All work and all play is a dangerous game” (p. 161) captures the risks of gamified, capitalist modes of connection.
The authors propose a “prosperity without growth” (Jackson, 2017) that values collaborative creativity over profit.

They caution against influencers and one-way communication, embracing instead “two-way channels that facilitate meaningful dialogue” (p. 65).

🌍 Outlook: A Cyborg Future Beyond Lockdown

The chapter ends on a hopeful note: “It is up to the cyborgs… to orientate the momentum… towards greener, happier, healthier and more connected futures” (p. 66).
Writing, as cyborg practice, becomes a model for empathy, political action, and collective identity.

Haraway’s vision—“This is a dream not of a common language, but of a powerful infidel heteroglossia” (p. 181)—serves as the ideological anchor for this new community.

Theoretical Terms/Concepts in “Now are we cyborgs? Affinities and Technology in the Covid-19 Lockdowns” by Emily Baker and Annie Ring

🔧 Theoretical Term	Explanation & Reference
🤖 Cyborg	A hybrid of organism and machine representing technologically-mediated identity and political agency. Haraway writes: “The Cyborg is our ontology; it gives us our politics” (p. 150). Reframed during Covid-19 as a lived condition shaped by tech (p. 58).
🧬 Anti-Essentialism	Rejects the idea of inherent traits defining identity (e.g., gender). Haraway states: “There is not even such a state as ‘being’ female…” (p. 172). Used to critique gendered labor imbalances and traditional roles during lockdown (p. 60).
🔗 Affinity	Haraway’s idea of solidarity based on choice rather than identity—“not by blood but by choice” (p. 155). Baker and Ring use this to suggest alliances that cross student-staff-outsourced worker boundaries in the neoliberal university (pp. 63–64).
📡 Informatics of Domination	Haraway’s term for how technology enforces global systems of control (p. 161). Baker and Ring apply it to the digitized, surveilled household during Covid-19 and the shift to isolated, tech-mediated labor (pp. 61–62).
🏠 Household Conservatism	Refers to how lockdowns reinforced patriarchal household norms. Citing Claire Hemmings: “the household has landed back on us with such an almighty conservative thump” (p. 61). Resurgence of unpaid care work and gender imbalance.
🧪 Elective Affinities	Taken from Goethe and adapted by Haraway to describe deliberate, transformative social bonds. Baker and Ring use this to envision reshaping domestic and institutional life during lockdown (p. 64).
🎭 Inoperative Community	From Jean-Luc Nancy—community formed not through production, but through shared exposure and vulnerability. Used to describe artistic and affective connections formed in digital lockdown spaces (p. 65).
🎮 Play-Work	The blurred boundary between leisure and labor under capitalism. Haraway writes: “All work and all play is a dangerous game” (p. 161). Baker and Ring explore how creative acts during lockdown resist—but are also at risk of being co-opted (pp. 65–66).

Contribution of “Now are we cyborgs? Affinities and Technology in the Covid-19 Lockdowns” by Emily Baker and Annie Ring to Literary Theory/Theories

🤖 Posthumanism

The chapter updates Haraway’s cyborg for 21st-century conditions, presenting the cyborg as a lived condition during the Covid-19 lockdowns rather than a speculative metaphor.
Reframes identity through technologically mediated embodiment, challenging humanist boundaries between human/machine, public/private, and work/home.

“We argue that cyborg ‘affinities’ open up new ways of challenging the deadly atomisation… of neoliberal capitalism” (p. 59).
Links to Giuliana Ferri’s notion of the cyborg as part of “critical interculturalism embedded in outsider narratives” (p. 61).

🧬 Feminist Literary Theory / Cyberfeminism

Engages deeply with Haraway’s socialist-feminist cyborg as a figure of political resistance against gender essentialism.

Critiques pandemic-era gender regression: “There is not even such a state as ‘being’ female’” (Haraway, p. 172; cited on p. 60).
Challenges normative roles of caregiving, motherhood, and domestic labor during lockdown.
Positions the cyborg as an anti-essentialist feminist agent resisting both traditional femininity and techno-phobia.

📡 Biopolitics / Surveillance Studies

Extends Foucault’s concept of biopower into the digital home, drawing on Paul B. Preciado: lockdowns intensified “disciplinary infiltration of homes, lives and minds” (p. 62).
Intersects with Haraway’s warning about “informatics of domination” (p. 61), where home-working technologies blur control and care.
Surveillance becomes embedded not only in government responses but also in domestic life through platform capitalism.

🔗 Marxist & Political Literary Theory

Offers a critique of neoliberal capitalism’s restructuring of labor and identity through the pandemic.
Coins new class identities like the “cybourgeoisie” (white-collar remote workers) versus “keyworker cyborgs” (low-paid essential workers) (pp. 59–60).
Reflects on intersectionality: race, class, and gender determine who suffers most in the technologized lockdown society.

🧪 Affect Theory & Community Studies

Builds on Jean-Luc Nancy’s Inoperative Community to describe affective, artistic, and fragmentary communities formed in lockdown: “exposure, sharing, and presentation of the self” (p. 65).
Suggests that writing, art, and play during isolation were not escapist but modes of resistance and community-building.
Embraces Haraway’s vision of partial, collective knowledge: “This is a dream not of a common language, but of a powerful infidel heteroglossia” (p. 181; cited p. 66).

🧱 Queer Theory

Incorporates Saidiya Hartman’s “wayward lives” to highlight historical queer, Black, and feminist resistances to domestic confinement (p. 60).
Celebrates “the anti-essentialist lives already being lived by cyborg-beings”, particularly queer, racialized, and precarious subjects (p. 60).
Positions gender, sexuality, and technology as fluid, not fixed, countering binary identities in both theoretical and social terms.

✍️ Literary Praxis / Writerly Theory

Writing becomes a cyborg practice—a combination of body, machine, and social resistance.
“Writing… is a means of connecting, one that helped so many people around the world to make our way through lockdown” (p. 66).
Reflects on Helene Cixous’s “there-not-there” presence of women’s writing as resistance to invisibility (p. 65).

Creative labor is framed as both work and play—with the risks of being commodified: “All work and all play is a dangerous game” (Haraway, p. 161; cited on p. 66).

🏛️ Critical University Studies

Challenges hierarchical academic identities by encouraging affinities over divisions: “Identities at work… can give way to affinities built across the classes created by the neoliberal university” (p. 64).
Advocates unionization, solidarity with outsourced workers and students, and rethinking institutional community through cyborg ethics.

Examples of Critiques Through “Now are we cyborgs? Affinities and Technology in the Covid-19 Lockdowns” by Emily Baker and Annie Ring

📘 Work / Text	🧠 Cyborg-Theoretical Critique (via Baker & Ring)
🎬 Metropolis (1927) by Fritz Lang & Thea von Harbou	The iconic female cyborg Maria is reframed as an anti-essentialist symbol who navigates both purity and jouissance, embodying the cyborg’s wayward identity (p. 60). Challenges fixed gender binaries.
📖 Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments by Saidiya Hartman	Hartman’s account of Black and queer women’s unruly lives serves as a historical precedent for cyborg resistance to domestic control and gendered labor (p. 60). Demonstrates cyborg as dual agent.
📘 Elective Affinities (1809) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe	Goethe’s metaphor of chemical attraction is reinterpreted as a model for post-identity solidarity. Baker & Ring use it to propose experimental household reconfiguration via cyborg ‘affinities’ (pp. 63–64).
🖊️ “Coming to Writing” by Hélène Cixous	Writing is seen as cyborg praxis, enabling connection amid lockdown isolation. Cixous’s “there-not-there” female voice supports cyborg resistance to invisibility and disembodiment (p. 65).

Criticism Against “Now are we cyborgs? Affinities and Technology in the Covid-19 Lockdowns” by Emily Baker and Annie Ring

⚖️ Class Privilege and the ‘Cybourgeoisie’

While the chapter critiques privileged remote workers (the “cybourgeoisie”), it also implicitly centers their experience, potentially under-representing those without stable jobs, housing, or tech access.
“We, in the new cybourgeoisie, adjusted to these new ways of working…” (p. 63) — the authors acknowledge their own privilege but focus much on the academic context, risking elitism.

🧩 Partiality and Perspective Limitations

Though Baker and Ring emphasize “partial connection” (p. 65) and non-total knowledge (Haraway, p. 179), they do not always fully explore how their own social locations (race, ability, geography) shape their theory.

The chapter concedes this when stating: “We acknowledge the partiality of our perspective” (p. 61), but this caveat may not be sufficient for a work tackling global, intersectional crises.

🏠 Idealization of Affinity and Fluid Community

The invocation of affinities (p. 64) and “fluid flexibility” of relationships (p. 65) may be criticized as utopian, particularly when structural forces like capitalism, racism, and patriarchy resist such transformation.
The metaphor of the “vulnerability of a bubble” (p. 65) could be seen as underestimating the durability of systemic violence and identity-based oppression.

📡 Underplaying Surveillance Risks of Technology

While the chapter resists technophobia and affirms tech as a means of pleasure and resistance (Haraway, p. 180), it might be too optimistic about the possibilities of “least-worst” platforms (p. 65).
Critics may argue that digital tools—even “two-way” ones—carry inherent risks of data extraction, commodification, and surveillance that aren’t deeply explored here.

🧠 Overextension of the Cyborg Metaphor

The cyborg figure is applied broadly—from keyworkers to writers to Zoom-users—which, while inclusive, may dilute the political potency of the concept.

Using the cyborg to encompass almost all technologically-mediated human experience risks turning it into a vague or totalizing metaphor.

✍️ Artistic Creation Framed as Resistance – But for Whom?

The chapter positions writing and creativity as vital modes of resistance and community (pp. 65–66), yet doesn’t fully examine who is excluded from such artistic access under conditions of poverty, grief, or oppression.

As the authors ask: “Does [writing] create new forms of invisibility for those without access?” (p. 66) — the question is crucial, but not fully answered.

Representative Quotations from “Now are we cyborgs? Affinities and Technology in the Covid-19 Lockdowns” by Emily Baker and Annie Ring with Explanation

💬 Quotation	📖 Explanation
“The Cyborg is our ontology; it gives us our politics” (p. 150).	A foundational claim from Haraway that defines the cyborg as a political identity. Baker and Ring build on this to interpret lockdown life as cyborgian.
“We argue that cyborg ‘affinities’ open up new ways of challenging the deadly atomisation…” (p. 59).	Suggests that solidarity based on affinity, not identity, can resist the isolating effects of neoliberalism during the pandemic.
“The cybourgeoisie… is actually a newcomer class” (p. 60).	Introduces a critical term for remote, privileged workers, contrasting them with frontline, underpaid keyworker-cyborgs.
“There is not even such a state as ‘being’ female…” (p. 172).	Cited from Haraway to reject gender essentialism; supports the authors’ critique of domestic gender roles revived during lockdown.
“The household has landed back on us with such an almighty conservative thump” (p. 61).	Cites Claire Hemmings to criticize the reassertion of the patriarchal household under pandemic conditions.
“Protective equipment… as a prosthesis that enables, rather than blocks, human connection” (p. 60).	Reclaims PPE not as dehumanizing but as a tool of care and connection in the cyborg framework.
“We acknowledge the partiality of our perspective” (p. 61).	A reflexive moment recognizing that their theory comes from a position of privilege within academia.
“All work and all play is a dangerous game” (p. 161).	Quoting Haraway to show how capitalist systems co-opt even play and creativity; writing can resist but is also vulnerable to commodification.
“Writing… helped so many people around the world to make our way through lockdown” (p. 66).	Affirms writing and art as forms of cyborg connection, resilience, and meaning-making during isolation.
“This is a dream not of a common language, but of a powerful infidel heteroglossia” (p. 181).	Ends by celebrating multiplicity, partiality, and co-created meaning — the cyborg’s way of knowing and resisting fixed identity systems.

“Futility” by Wilfred Owen: A Critical Analysis

“Futility” by Wilfred Owen first appeared in 1918 in The Nation, and was later included in his posthumous 1920 collection Poems edited by Siegfried Sassoon.

Introduction: “Futility” by Wilfred Owen

“Futility” by Wilfred Owen first appeared in 1918 in The Nation, and was later included in his posthumous 1920 collection Poems edited by Siegfried Sassoon. The poem captures the tragic irony of a soldier’s death through the gentle yet devastating image of sunlight—once a giver of life, now powerless to awaken the dead. It contrasts the nurturing force of nature with the destructiveness of war. The main ideas revolve around the fragility of life, the senselessness of war, and the existential doubt it breeds. Owen uses natural imagery, such as “the kind old sun,” to question the very purpose of life and creation when confronted with death: “Was it for this the clay grew tall?” The poem’s enduring popularity lies in its poignant emotional restraint and philosophical depth, encapsulated in the final cry of despair: “O what made fatuous sunbeams toil / To break earth’s sleep at all?” Through this, Owen articulates a universal sense of loss and disillusionment that transcends the battlefield.

Text: “Futility” by Wilfred Owen

Move him into the sun—

Gently its touch awoke him once,

At home, whispering of fields half-sown.

Always it woke him, even in France,

Until this morning and this snow.

If anything might rouse him now

The 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?

Annotations: “Futility” by Wilfred Owen

Line from Poem	Simple Meaning	Literary Devices
Move him into the sun—	Move the dead soldier’s body into the sunlight.	Imperative voice, imagery ☀️
Gently its touch awoke him once,	The sun used to wake him gently when he was alive.	Personification, soft tone 🤲
At home, whispering of fields half-sown.	The sun reminded him of the peaceful countryside and growing crops.	Alliteration, pastoral imagery 🌾
Always it woke him, even in France,	Even during the war in France, sunlight woke him daily.	Contrast (home vs war), irony 🪖🌞
Until this morning and this snow.	But today, in the cold snow, the sun can’t wake him.	Seasonal contrast, finality ❄️
If anything might rouse him now	If anything could bring him back to life now…	Conditional phrase, emotional tension ⚡
The kind old sun will know.	…it would be the kind sun that always brought life.	Personification, gentle hope 🌤️
Think how it wakes the seeds—	The sun gives life to seeds and makes them grow.	Natural metaphor for life 🌱
Woke once the clays of a cold star.	It once gave life to the Earth, formed from lifeless clay.	Cosmic metaphor, creation myth 🌌
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides	These human limbs, created with such care…	Emotive tone, tragic reflection 💔
Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?	…are still warm and full of life, yet unmoving.	Rhetorical question, irony ❓
Was it for this the clay grew tall?	Was life made for this meaningless death?	Biblical allusion (clay = humans), existentialism 🧱
—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil	Why did the sun foolishly work to bring life…	Oxymoron, futility theme 🌞❌
To break earth’s sleep at all?	…if life ends in pointless death like this?	Rhetorical question, cosmic despair 🌍❓

Literary And Poetic Devices: “Futility” by Wilfred Owen

Literary Device	Example from Poem	Detailed Explanation
Alliteration	“fields half-sown”	The repetition of the “s” sound emphasizes the incomplete state of the fields, mirroring the soldier’s unfinished life and the futility of his death.
Allusion	“the clays of a cold star”	Refers to the biblical creation story where humans are formed from clay, suggesting the soldier’s body as a product of divine creation, now lifeless, questioning the purpose of creation.
Apostrophe	“O what made fatuous sunbeams toil”	The speaker addresses the sun directly, though it cannot respond, expressing despair and questioning the purpose of life and creation.
Assonance	“sun / once”	The repetition of the “u” sound in these words creates a soft, mournful tone, reinforcing the gentle yet futile hope in the sun’s power to revive.
Caesura	“Until this morning and this snow.”	The pause after “morning” emphasizes the finality of the soldier’s death, breaking the rhythm to highlight the shift from life to death.
Consonance	“whispering of fields”	The repetition of the “f” sound creates a soft, whispering effect, evoking the gentle memory of home and the soldier’s past life.
Enjambment	“Move him into the sun— / Gently its touch awoke him once”	The thought carries over to the next line without punctuation, mimicking the flow of hope that the sun might revive the soldier, only to be dashed.
Hyperbole	“The kind old sun will know”	Exaggerates the sun’s wisdom or power, personifying it as a sentient force capable of deciding the soldier’s fate, highlighting the speaker’s desperate hope.
Imagery	“whispering of fields half-sown”	Vividly depicts the rural, pastoral life of the soldier’s past, contrasting with the harsh reality of war and death, evoking nostalgia and loss.
Irony	“The kind old sun will know”	It is ironic that the sun, a life-giving force, is powerless to revive the soldier, underscoring the futility of relying on natural forces in the face of war’s destruction.
Juxtaposition	“this morning and this snow”	Contrasts the warmth of morning (life) with snow (cold, death), emphasizing the soldier’s transition from life to death in a stark, natural setting.
Metaphor	“the clays of a cold star”	Compares the soldier’s body to clay formed on Earth (a “cold star”), suggesting both creation and lifelessness, questioning the purpose of human existence.
Mood	Entire poem	The mood is somber and despairing, created through imagery of death, snow, and futile hope, reflecting the speaker’s grief and questioning of life’s purpose.
Oxymoron	“fatuous sunbeams”	Combines “fatuous” (foolish) with “sunbeams” (life-giving), suggesting the sun’s efforts to bring life are ultimately meaningless in the face of death.
Personification	“Gently its touch awoke him once”	Attributes human-like qualities to the sun, suggesting it has the gentle, caring ability to awaken, which contrasts with its current failure to revive the soldier.
Question (Rhetorical)	“Was it for this the clay grew tall?”	Asks a question not meant to be answered, emphasizing the speaker’s anguish over the seemingly pointless creation of life that ends in death.
Repetition	“woke”	Repeated in “woke him” and “woke once the clays,” emphasizing the sun’s past success in giving life, contrasting with its present failure.
Symbolism	“the sun”	Represents life, hope, and creation, but its inability to revive the soldier symbolizes the futility of natural forces against the devastation of war.
Tone	Entire poem	The tone is mournful and questioning, as the speaker grapples with the soldier’s death and the broader futility of life and creation in the context of war.
Understatement	“If anything might rouse him now”	Downplays the slim chance of revival, subtly conveying the speaker’s resignation to the soldier’s death while clinging to faint hope.

Themes: “Futility” by Wilfred Owen

☀️ The Power and Limitations of Nature: In “Futility” by Wilfred Owen, the theme of nature’s dual role as a life-giving force, yet one constrained by its inability to reverse death, emerges through a poignant interplay of hope and despair, which the speaker articulates by imploring, “Move him into the sun— / Gently its touch awoke him once,” thereby evoking a time when the sun’s warmth stirred the soldier’s vitality, reminiscent of “fields half-sown” in his pastoral past. Personified as a “kind old” entity, the sun, which “woke once the clays of a cold star,” is imbued with a nurturing agency that historically catalyzed life, yet, as the soldier lies unresponsive—“Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides / Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?”—Owen underscores nature’s limitations, for even the sun, a symbol of creation, cannot overcome the finality of death. This juxtaposition, culminating in the anguished query, “O what made fatuous sunbeams toil / To break earth’s sleep at all?” reveals a profound disillusionment, wherein the speaker, confronting war’s devastation, questions the efficacy of nature’s once-mighty power, which now appears futile against the backdrop of mortality.

💔 The Tragedy of War: In “Futility” by Wilfred Owen, the tragic cost of war, which extinguishes life and potential with merciless finality, is vividly portrayed through the speaker’s desperate plea to “Move him into the sun,” a command that, set against the stark imagery of “this morning and this snow,” underscores the soldier’s abrupt transition from the warmth of life to the cold permanence of death. The soldier, whose past is tenderly recalled through “whispering of fields half-sown,” embodies unfulfilled dreams shattered by conflict, a loss that Owen amplifies through the rhetorical question, “Was it for this the clay grew tall?”—a lament that interrogates the purpose of human existence when war so callously destroys it. By juxtaposing the soldier’s “still warm” body with his unresponsiveness, Owen crafts a complex critique of war’s senseless destruction, wherein the poem, steeped in the grim reality of the battlefield, mourns not only the individual but also the broader human potential obliterated by violence, thus rendering the tragedy both personal and universal.

❓ Questioning Creation and Purpose: In “Futility” by Wilfred Owen, the theme of existential questioning, which probes the purpose of creation in the face of meaningless death, surfaces as the speaker, grappling with the soldier’s demise, reflects on the biblical allusion to “the clays of a cold star,” a phrase that evokes humanity’s divine origin while simultaneously challenging its value when life is so easily extinguished. The query, “Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides / Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?” encapsulates the speaker’s anguish, as he wonders why such intricate creation—limbs painstakingly formed—culminates in stillness, a sentiment intensified by the closing lament, “O what made fatuous sunbeams toil / To break earth’s sleep at all?” Through this complex interrogation, Owen, weaving together the soldier’s physicality with metaphysical concerns, suggests that war’s devastation renders creation itself absurd, for if life, so meticulously crafted, ends in futility, the speaker is left to ponder whether the act of creation, driven by “fatuous sunbeams,” holds any enduring purpose.

😔 Despair and Hopelessness: In “Futility” by Wilfred Owen, a pervasive sense of despair and hopelessness, which permeates the speaker’s confrontation with mortality, emerges through the initial, fleeting hope expressed in “Move him into the sun— / Gently its touch awoke him once,” a plea that, juxtaposed with the chilling reality of “this morning and this snow,” reveals the futility of expecting revival. The sun, personified as “kind old” and once capable of awakening life, fails to stir the soldier, prompting the speaker’s resigned question, “If anything might rouse him now / The kind old sun will know,” which subtly conveys a waning faith in natural forces. This despair deepens in the poem’s climax, where the speaker, reflecting on the soldier’s lifeless form, asks, “Was it for this the clay grew tall?”—a rhetorical cry that, coupled with the denunciation of “fatuous sunbeams,” underscores a profound hopelessness, wherein Owen, through intricate layers of grief and disillusionment, portrays war as a force that not only claims lives but also extinguishes the hope that life’s creation might hold meaning.

Literary Theories and “Futility” by Wilfred Owen

Literary Theory	Application to “Futility”
1. Formalism 📜	Focuses on the language, structure, and literary devices in the poem. The gentle tone (“Gently its touch awoke him once”) contrasts with the harsh theme of death. The use of personification of the sun and rhetorical questions like “Was it for this the clay grew tall?” reinforce the theme of futility.
2. Historical/Biographical 🪖	Wilfred Owen wrote this during WWI, where he served as a soldier. The line “Always it woke him, even in France” refers to the battlefields of war, contrasting with the peace of “fields half-sown.” The poem reflects Owen’s first-hand trauma and disillusionment with war.
3. Existentialism 🌀	Examines the meaning of life and death, highlighting human suffering and absurdity. The poem questions the purpose of creation: “Was it for this the clay grew tall?” and “O what made fatuous sunbeams toil?” suggesting life may be inherently meaningless in the face of war.
4. Ecocriticism 🌱	Explores the relationship between nature and humanity. The poem presents the sun as a nurturing force: “Think how it wakes the seeds”, yet questions its value when life is destroyed: “To break earth’s sleep at all?” It critiques how human violence disrupts the natural order.

Critical Questions about “Futility” by Wilfred Owen

1. How does Owen use natural imagery to contrast life and death? 🌞❄️

In “Futility” by Wilfred Owen, natural imagery plays a central role in juxtaposing the nurturing qualities of nature with the cold finality of death. The sun, traditionally a symbol of life and hope 🌞, is personified as “the kind old sun”, which “gently… awoke him once”. This contrast becomes deeply ironic as the same life-giving sun is now powerless to awaken the dead soldier lying in the snow: “Until this morning and this snow”. Here, snow ❄️ symbolizes death’s cold permanence, emphasizing that nature’s life cycle fails in the face of war’s destruction. The imagery suggests a deep rupture between the natural world and human conflict, where the former’s healing powers are tragically insufficient.

2. What philosophical or existential questions does the poem raise? 🌀❓

Wilfred Owen’s “Futility” poses existential questions that challenge the very purpose of human life and creation. The speaker mourns not just a soldier’s death but the futility of existence itself, asking “Was it for this the clay grew tall?”—a direct metaphor questioning whether humanity was created only to die pointlessly. The poem culminates in the anguished cry: “O what made fatuous sunbeams toil / To break earth’s sleep at all?”, reflecting deep existential doubt 🌀. These lines question why life was ever awakened from the inert “earth,” suggesting that death and suffering may outweigh the value of life. Owen’s perspective is shaped by the horrors of war, which render even the sun’s benevolent role meaningless, and thereby confront readers with the absurdity of life when viewed through the lens of mass death.

3. In what ways does the poem critique war without describing battle? 🪖⚰️

In “Futility” by Wilfred Owen, war is never directly described—there are no guns, bombs, or trenches—yet the poem is one of the most powerful anti-war elegies in English literature. By focusing on a single soldier’s death and the failed hope that “the kind old sun will know” how to rouse him, Owen humanizes the loss, making it deeply personal and universal. The line “Always it woke him, even in France” indirectly references the war zone, but the absence of violence in the imagery makes the tragedy more haunting 🪖⚰️. The soldier becomes a symbol of all young lives lost, and the speaker’s rhetorical questions lay bare the emotional and moral costs of war, rendering it both pointless and unredeemable. The war’s true violence is in its erasure of meaning, not just life.

4. How does Owen present the relationship between the body and the spirit? 🧍‍♂️🌬️

“Futility” by Wilfred Owen subtly explores the fragile connection between the human body and the spirit or soul, especially in the moment of death. The body described is still “Full-nerved, still warm”, suggesting that the corpse retains physical life’s residue, yet remains unmoving. This unsettling image raises a haunting question: “Are limbs, so dear-achieved… too hard to stir?”, implying that despite the body’s readiness, something essential—the soul or animating spirit—is gone 🧍‍♂️🌬️. By portraying the body as warm yet lifeless, Owen challenges materialist views of life and hints at a deeper, perhaps spiritual loss, underlining the mysterious transition between life and death. The poem thus becomes not only a reflection on mortality, but also a meditation on the essence of what makes us alive.

Literary Works Similar to “Futility” by Wilfred Owen

“Anthem for Doomed Youth” by Wilfred Owen 🕯️
Like “Futility”, this poem mourns the waste of young lives in war, replacing traditional mourning rituals with the brutality of the battlefield. Both use irony and funeral imagery to expose the dehumanizing effects of WWI.
“Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen ☠️
This poem critiques the false glorification of war, echoing Futility’s existential questioning. Both poems use graphic imagery and rhetorical questions to condemn war propaganda and highlight the pointlessness of death in combat.

“The Soldier” by Rupert Brooke 🇬🇧⚰️
Though more patriotic in tone, this poem shares Futility’s reflection on death and the homeland. It contrasts sharply, however, in viewing death as noble, while Owen sees it as senseless and tragic—highlighting the ideological divide in WWI poetry.
“In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae 🌺
This iconic WWI poem also focuses on the death of soldiers and nature’s response. While it has a more hopeful tone than Futility, both poems use natural imagery (fields, flowers, sun) to explore life after loss and the memory of the fallen.
“Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas 🔥
Although not a war poem, it similarly deals with death and resistance. Like Owen, Thomas questions the inevitability of death, using powerful emotional appeals. Both poems are lyrical meditations on the fragility of life.

Representative Quotations of “Futility” by Wilfred Owen

	Quotation	Context	Theoretical Perspective
☀️	“Move him into the sun—”	This opening line, which introduces the speaker’s desperate plea to place a dead soldier in the sunlight, sets the tone for the poem’s exploration of hope and futility, as the speaker clings to the possibility that the sun, a life-giving force, might revive the fallen soldier.	New Criticism: From a New Critical perspective, which emphasizes close reading of the text’s formal elements, the imperative “Move him” and the dash create a sense of urgency and hesitation, reflecting the tension between hope and despair, while the sun’s symbolic role as a life-giver is immediately established, setting up the poem’s central irony that nature cannot undo death.
🌾	“Gently its touch awoke him once”	Following the command to move the soldier, this line recalls the sun’s past ability to awaken the soldier, evoking memories of his life before war, particularly in a rural setting.	Romanticism: Through a Romantic lens, which valorizes nature’s sublime power, this line portrays the sun as a gentle, almost divine force that once harmonized with the soldier’s vitality, yet the poem’s shift to futility critiques Romantic ideals by highlighting nature’s failure to restore life in the face of war’s destruction.
🌄	“At home, whispering of fields half-sown”	This line, part of the first stanza, reflects the soldier’s past life in a pastoral setting, where the sun’s warmth was associated with growth and incomplete agricultural tasks, contrasting with his current lifeless state.	Ecocriticism: An ecocritical perspective, which examines the relationship between literature and the environment, interprets this line as a nostalgic invocation of a harmonious human-nature connection, disrupted by war, with “fields half-sown” symbolizing unfulfilled potential and the environmental cost of conflict.
❄️	“Until this morning and this snow”	Appearing in the first stanza, this line marks the moment of the soldier’s death, with the snow symbolizing cold finality and contrasting with the sun’s warmth, emphasizing the futility of the speaker’s hope.	Formalism: From a formalist perspective, which focuses on structure and language, the juxtaposition of “morning” (hope) and “snow” (death) creates a stark contrast, reinforced by the caesura after “morning,” which pauses the rhythm to underscore the irreversible shift from life to death.
🌞	“The kind old sun will know”	Concluding the first stanza, this line personifies the sun as a wise, benevolent force, expressing the speaker’s faint hope that it might have the power to revive the soldier, despite the reality of death.	Personification Analysis: Through the lens of personification as a rhetorical device, this line anthropomorphizes the sun, endowing it with human-like wisdom and care, which amplifies the tragic irony when the sun, despite its “kind” nature, fails to act, highlighting the limits of natural agency in the face of mortality.
🌱	“Think how it wakes the seeds—”	Opening the second stanza, this line shifts to a broader reflection on the sun’s role in fostering life, urging the reader to consider its power to stimulate growth in nature, in contrast to its current ineffectiveness.	Structuralism: From a structuralist perspective, which examines underlying patterns, this line establishes a binary opposition between life (seeds waking) and death (the soldier’s stillness), with the dash signaling a contemplative pause that invites reflection on the universal cycle disrupted by war.
🪨	“Woke once the clays of a cold star”	Also in the second stanza, this line alludes to the biblical creation of humanity from clay, suggesting the soldier’s body as a product of divine or natural creation, now lifeless.	Mythological Criticism: Through a mythological lens, which explores archetypal narratives, this line invokes the creation myth, positioning the soldier as a modern Adam whose “clay” fails to rise, thus questioning the divine or natural purpose of creation in a world marred by war’s futility.
💪	“Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides / Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?”	This rhetorical question in the second stanza reflects on the soldier’s once-vital body, now unresponsive, emphasizing the tragedy of a life meticulously formed yet extinguished.	Existentialism: An existentialist perspective, which grapples with meaning and absurdity, interprets this line as a lament over the purposelessness of human existence, where the “dear-achieved” body, crafted with care, lies inert, prompting the speaker to question the value of life in a war-torn world.
❓	“Was it for this the clay grew tall?”	This poignant question in the second stanza challenges the purpose of human creation, wondering if life’s efforts culminate only in death, particularly in the context of war.	Deconstruction: From a deconstructionist perspective, which questions fixed meanings, this line destabilizes the notion of purposeful creation, as the phrase “grew tall” implies growth and aspiration, yet its rhetorical pairing with “for this” (death) reveals an inherent contradiction, undermining teleological assumptions about life.
😔	“O what made fatuous sunbeams toil / To break earth’s sleep at all?”	The poem’s closing lines express despair, questioning why the sun’s efforts to foster life were undertaken if death is inevitable, encapsulating the poem’s theme of futility.	Psychoanalytic Criticism: Through a psychoanalytic lens, which explores unconscious motivations, this line reflects the speaker’s projection of despair onto the sun, with “fatuous sunbeams” symbolizing a futile life force, revealing a subconscious grappling with the trauma of war and the absurdity of existence in the face of mortality.

Day: August 25, 2025