Wilfred Owen's Anthem for Doomed Youth Analysis Essay

Wilfred Owen's war poems central features include the wastage involved with war, horrors of war and the physical effects of war. These features are seen in the poems "Dulce Et Decorum Est" and "Anthem for Doomed Youth" here Owen engages with the reader appealing to the readers empathy that is felt towards the soldier. These poems interact to explore the experiences of the soldiers on the battlefields including the realities of using gas as a weapon in war and help to highlight the incorrect glorification of war. This continuous interaction invites the reader to connect with the poems to develop a more thorough

Wilfred Owen uses language and poetic devices to evoke sympathy for the soldier in the poem by using in-depth descriptions. An example of this is in the first stanza where the soldier in the poem ‘shivered in his ghastly suit of grey’. The ‘g’ sound in the words ‘ghastly’ and ‘grey’ emphasises the horror of ‘ghastly’ combined with the dreariness of ‘grey’, which are now the two main features of his life. The word ‘ghastly’ shows something that is strange and unnatural. The adjective ‘grey’, which has connotations of bleakness, portrays an image of darkness and monotony. Furthermore, the verb ‘shivered’ shows that he is vulnerable and exposed. In the phrase, ‘Legless, sewn short at elbow’, the sibilance at the end of ‘Legless’, and in ‘sewn short’ tell us that the short-syllable words are ruthlessly to the point, so it emphasises the fact that the soldier has no arms and legs because of his wounds.

The soldiers who had attended the war were shown to have died brutally, like “cattle”, yet when reaching the home front, it is seen that they are laid to rest in a much more civil and dignified manner. The concept of this can be seen as an extended metaphor throughout the entire poem, with the battle front seen as a world filled with violence, fear and destruction, where as the home front is perceived as a place marked by order and ritual, a civilized world. The second sonnet opens with “What candles may be held to speed them all?”, invoking a more softer and compassionate tone towards the audience, more specifically through Owen’s use of a rhetorical question. It captures the readers’ attention, engaging them to feel empathetic and notice the shift of energy from anger and bitterness to a sadder and more somber tone. Owen’s use of descriptive language, as simple as it seems, such as ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ provokes the audience to view the horrors of the war as if they had been placed onto children, because in reality the ‘men; who had signed themselves into war to fight in glory for their country had really only just been boys themselves.

In stanza 6 Owen mentions "with sidelong flowing flakes that flock pause and renew" the alliteration in the quote juxtaposes with the harshness of war as the repeated "f" sound conveys the sharp yet pure image of snow gently touching their faces as they wait for death. The use of alliteration in the quote speeds the tempo of the poem only for Owen to use a pause which sustains the anxiety and tension felt by the soldiers. Owen and the other war soldiers are frightened like small animals. When Owen mentions "we cringe in holes" he uses the words "cringe" and "holes" to show that they are behaving like small, scared animals and the conditions it would live in can be compared to how Owen and the other war soldiers live in the trenches.

Para-rhymes, in Owen’s poetry, generate a sense of incompleteness while creating a pessimistic, gloomy effect to give an impression of sombreness. Strong rhyming schemes are often interrupted unexpectedly with a para-rhyme to incorporate doubt to every aspect of this Great War. Who are the real villains and why are hundreds of thousands of lives being wasted in a war with no meaning? In ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, the consistent sonnet rhyming scheme is disturbed by a half rhyme, “guns … orisons”, to show how the soldiers all died alone with only the weapons that killed them by their side, and a visual rhyme, “all … pall” to indicate that the reality of war is entirely the opposite to what it seems - no glory, no joy and no heroism, but only death and destruction. Owen occasionally works with this technique in a reverse approach to create similar thought. For instance, the assonance, consonance and half rhyme based poem, ‘The Last Laugh’, contains an unforeseen full rhyme, “moaned … groaned”, to emphasise that nothing is ever fixed in war except the ghastly fact that the weapons are the true winners. Different forms of Para rhymes often work together with common schemes to ably bring out the main ideas of Owen’s poetry.

Owen intends to shock us by presenting the reality he is feeling, this is why I had chosen this to be one of my poems Owen usesgraphic descriptions, speaking in a very direct and straightforward way, using words that convey ugliness and also shows the reality of war which clearly changes our thoughts of war in the end.

As an anti-war poet, Wilfred Owen uses his literary skills to express his perspective on human conflict and the wastage involved with war, the horrors of war, and its negative effects and outcomes. As a young man involved in the war himself, Owen obtained personal objectivity of the dehumanisation of young people during the war, as well as the false glorification that the world has been influenced to deliver to them. These very ideas can be seen in poems such as 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' and 'Dulce ET Decorum EST Pro Patria Mori'. Owen uses a variety of literary techniques to convey his ideas.

know the truth. I am going to explore what I find to be three of his

Owen does this again through the aural imagery, ‘the shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; and bugles calling for them from sad shires’. This shows the effects of war on the soldiers and causes an emotional connection between them in the reader which therefore enforces the harsh reality of war. Both of these aspects challenge the reader’s perspective on war as they both contradict the glorification it receives through propaganda.

His tone implies that he didn't know what he was getting into when Uncle Sam beckoned for him to join the war effort. Owen uses words like “Obscene” (Owen 23), “Incurable” (Owen 24), and to add a satirical bite, “An ecstasy of fumbling” (Owen 9). Owen’s diction makes it clear what his position on the war is, and tries his hardest to describe the brutality of it. Owen concludes his poem with “you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory…” (Owen 25-26). Owen drives his point home with his bitter tone and honest message. “The old lie” (Owen 27) Owen exclaims at the end of his poem. Death is not a romantic thing, even to die for your country.

Owen manifests the soldiers’ ferocious emotions through their guns to demonstrate the dehumanization they experienced when killing someone. When Wilfred says “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? / - Only the monstrous anger of the guns,” it strips the soldiers of their identity and humanity just as killing someone in war did to them (1-2). By taking away the soldiers’ identities and channeling their emotions through their weaponry and deeming them “monstrous” it makes it more difficult for the audience to develop a personal connection to the soldiers and their feelings, which is exactly what Owen wants. People back home during the war could not possibly relate or put themselves in the shoes of these soldiers, which Owen highlights to the reader through this method. To be able to kill someone, they had

In majority of Owen’s poem, he demonstrates the true image of war and the impact it has on the soldiers rather than masking it with the lies of pride

The manipulation by Owen’s superiors expose tragedy, as soldiers are being used like cattle to fight a battle with no cause. Throughout his poems, Owen does not portray anger as the enemy, but he is angry at those who are sending men over to fight the war. These who are affectively his superior and his rulers of the country, he is angry at the people who are

The very title that Wilfred Owen chose for his war poem, 'Anthem for Doomed Youth ' is an apt representation of what he wanted the poem to encapsulate and the emotions he wanted to evoke in the readers. The word 'anthem ' and 'doomed youth ' is a stark juxtaposition when placed in the same sentence. An anthem is supposed to be something revered, something that represents the glory of a country and is bursting with national pride. However, when placed right before the words 'doomed youth ' we get the impression that Owen is indirectly trying to question the glory and honour that most associate with war. Is it really right that we would strip youth of their lives, their dignity and their future on the

Owen used, in this poem, an alliteration to add emphasis to the poem and the image it presents. The phrases like "bayonet-blade", "blind, blunt bullet" and "famishing for flesh" have alliterations of the letter "b" and "f" which create an effect on the ears. The letter "b" is pronounced harshly to emphasize the cruelty of these weapons which is used to kill. Also, the letter "f" is pronounced harshly, but it is used to emphasize the heartlessness and inhumanity of having such thoughts by the boy. These alliterations give greater significant in regard to the exact image. Also, there is a use of