"Futility" Futility means that something is destined to fail. The quality of producing no valuable effect, or of coming to nothing; uselessness. The structure of the poem is in balanced stanzas - the tenderness and hopefulness at the beginning; the growing bitterness of the second, with its climax. Owen is telling the persona's story of the death of a comrade as a balance. This has to happen as so many of them died that there …showed first 75 words of 846 total…

…showed last 75 words of 846 total…passion of his query are emphasises by "O" as he wonders why the earth, which permits such cruelty to its creatures, was ever brought to life in the first place. The growing intensity of the series of rhetorical questions towards the end of the poem culminates in the devastatingly bitter conclusion, and pauses are used for dramatic emphasis. The rhetorical questions force the reader to answer the questions on the futility of death in warfare.