{"id":1491,"date":"2025-12-05T21:35:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T21:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/?p=1491"},"modified":"2025-12-05T21:59:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T21:59:00","slug":"jamess-reading-of-owens-the-parable-of-the-old-man-and-the-young","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/?p=1491","title":{"rendered":"James&#8217;s reading of Owen&#8217;s The Parable of the Old Man and the Young"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/15yiR89gkaqEstfiREc9gPiEBd-YI5jVj\/view?usp=sharing\">https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/15yiR89gkaqEstfiREc9gPiEBd-YI5jVj\/view?usp=sharing<\/a><br><br>This poem caught my attention because of its familiar style and the reshaping of the well-known story as a warning. As someone who was raised on parables, I saw three layered elder-to-youth relationships; Abram to Isaac, the political leaders to their soldiers, and finally Owen to us, the audience, long after the war. <br><br>What surprised me most was Owen\u2019s take on the alternate option that Abram was offered, the Ram of Pride. In the biblical version, the ram is the rightful substitute, preventing Isaac\u2019s death. But in Owen\u2019s retelling, Abram kills his son and leaves the ram, choosing the destruction of youth over the discomfort of humility. Reflected in the war, that choice reads as both political and personal. It reminded me of the parents and communities in our novels, the Mothers and Mrs. Evans-Mawningtons who pushed to have their children in the war in order to gain social status. The country fails its children, but so do the individuals who allow pride or social pressure to make the decision for them and their children.<br><br>Ending the semester with this poem feels appropriate because it reinforces the tragedy that the suffering could have been avoided but was not. Every soldier had a community that valued their country\u2019s pride over their own life, the future of that same country. The poem emphasizes the futility of the casualties endured and serves as a warning to future communities in this position to not lose track of what matters more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/15yiR89gkaqEstfiREc9gPiEBd-YI5jVj\/view?usp=sharing This poem caught my attention because of its familiar style and the reshaping of the well-known story as a warning. As someone who was raised on parables, I saw three layered elder-to-youth relationships; Abram to Isaac, the political leaders &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/?p=1491\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5,403],"class_list":["post-1491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-doing-your-bit","tag-poetry-project"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1491"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1680,"href":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491\/revisions\/1680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}