Analysis of Anthem for Doomed Youth

‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ gives a graphical and nightmarish insight into the horrors faced by soldiers during war whereas ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ has a sorrowful pitch and powerfully comments on war. Both poems show the suffering and immorality of war and affect the reader in a slightly different ways.

Wilfred Owen’s poetry is shaped by an intense focus on extraordinary human experiences. In at least 2 poems set for study, explore Owen’s portrayal of suffering and pity.

Throughout history, wars have been an important factor affecting many people’s lives. The two sonnets “Anthem for Doomed Youth” by Wilfred Owen and “Trench Duty” by Siegfried Sassoon are two tales inspired by their experiences fighting in WW1 and all the horrors that war made them experience. Both poets use different sonnet structures, yet convey quite similar messages. In addition, these poets develop powerful images and metaphors, but in subtly different ways. Sassoon and Owen use structure, imagery and metaphor to show his audience the horrors of war and also how unfortunate going to war is.

First of all, one has to analyse the poem with regards to form and content. The Sonnet holds the Iambic

Owen’s description of adolescent male soldiers being doomed augments his interpretation of young soldiers being extremely at risk within combat. ‘Doomed’ is a word that carries the effect and imagery of these young men being sent to their doom by propagandists and recruiters, and becoming denied of the remembrance they deserve as they lose their lives to the ruins of war.

Owen uses the contrast of the soldiers’ state pre-war and post-war to highlight just how much the soldier has lost through going to war. Physically, pre-war, the soldier is described as ‘younger than his youth,’ and has an ‘artist silly for his face.’ Suggesting that his beauty is worth capturing permanently in paint. The words ‘younger ‘and ‘youth’ emphasise this man’s innocence and boyishness, the tautology places emphasis on how young he is thus outlining his immaturity before the war and making his loss at war even more tragic. The contrast once he has returned where Owen

Literature, most especially poems, were able to show the true horrors and destructions war caused, be it mentally or physically. Through poems, those who didn’t go to war understood what the men went through, holding a deep pity for them. Sir Herbert Read – writer of ‘The Happy Warrior’ – was a surviving soldier of WWI, he went and fought the war at the age of eighteen/nineteen as an infantry soldier, and his poems often speak of his lost childhood. Wilfred Owen – the poet of ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ and ‘Disabled’ – fought the war until he was twenty-one when he died, he is well-known as one of the greatest voiced for WWI, he spoke for the soldiers to show the pity of war. Richard Aldington – author of ‘Bombardment’ – wrote of WWI through many of his works after going there himself when he was around twenty-four years old, wounded on the western front only a year later.

Wilfred Owen can be considered as one of the finest war poets of all times. His war poems, a collection of works composed between January 1917, when he was first sent to the Western Front, and November 1918, when he was killed in action, use a variety of poetic techniques to allow the reader to empathise with his world, situation, emotions and thoughts. The sonnet form, para-rhymes, ironic titles, voice, and various imagery used by Owen grasp the prominent central idea of the complete futility of war as well as explore underlying themes such as the massive waste of young lives, the horrors of war, the hopelessness of war and the loss of religion. These can be seen in the three poems, ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ and

Whereby “Anthem for Doomed Youth” is with regards to the young soldiers who are being sent to wars in order to fulfill their national duties. W. Owen implies the idea that they are sent to wars with monstrous guns and yet they lose their lives in the battlefield, just like cattles in the slaughterhouse; strong but incapable of choosing their own destiny. It also brings up the idea of how these soldiers are viewed and paid back by their compatriots with no respect, recognition, nor remembrance, “No  mockeries now for them, no prayers nor bells; nor any voice of mourning” (5-6). Moreover, unlike the other poem, this poem does not use much of simile and metaphors but exploits  alliteration  for more that a few times, “Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle” (2), “ Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes [ ] Shall shine the glory glimmers of goodbyes.” (10-11). The tone of the narrator in this poem is solemn, sorrowful, and mournful towards the fallen soldiers of wars,  “each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.”

1.) A sonnet is a lyrical poem that has fourteen lines. Sonnets were introduced in the 16th century, William Shakespeare’s time and era. William Shakespeare’s notorious “Sonnet 18” is by far my favorite sonnet that I have had the chance and pleasure to indulge in. Sonnet 18 is about the love and compassion the speaker has for his significant other.

In both poems, “Dulce et Decorum Est” and “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, Wilfred Owen explores the theme of war. Although there are some similarities there are countless differences. In “Dulce et Decorum Est” we get an image of the war and its grotesque effects on the human body; however, “Anthem for Doomed Youth” is focused on how the soldiers were denied the funeral they deserved and contains more religion. Owen deliberately utilises irony in both of his titles.

Owen reveals the mental suffering in,“In all my dreams, before my helpless sight’— The emotive language, ‘helpless’, conveys the strong sense of despair and futility felt by the soldiers who fought in the war. Owen communicates to readers that even though war is over, the past traumatising experiences of affects the soldiers psychologically and that it’s described as unescapable that the experiences in the war will continue to haunt the persona. Owen further highlights the mental suffering through the use of auditory imagery of the gerunds which establishes a sense of the present, everything that the persona experienced during war, he is enduring it again now. The listing of gerunds, ’guttering, choking, drowning’ signifies the termination of life and also the mental and physical sufferings of the soldiers.

The theme of Shakespeare’s 29th sonnet is how he feels like a social outcast and is depressed. But when he thinks of a certain person’s love, he feels happy, and it takes him

In order to describe the nature of the world, the lyrical subject of the sonnet uses dark and negative metaphors, which present the world as a "painted veil" (l. 1) and as a "gloomy scene" (l. 13). This symbol of

‘Anthem for doomed youth’ portrays the sad and tragic aspects of loss by generalizing it to focus on young men losing their lives on the battlefield to be deprived of their funeral rights. Owen expresses the horrors of war and openly criticizes the loss of life; the loss of young and promising men sent to their inevitable death. Owen effectively portrays the suffering of war to draw the responder’s attention to the victims who are only ‘boys’. Through the use of rhetorical questioning in conjunction with a simile Owen makes comparisons between the cattle and the solider, this is showcased through the line “what passing-bells for these who die as cattle?” In which the disaster of sending young men to die is emphasized through the solemn lament