Anthem For Doomed Youth Analysis

Written in September 1917, Anthem for Doomed Youth is primarily the expression of the meaningless slaughter of the war. The anti-war poem begins by highlighting the violence of the soldier s death and develops as the tone shifts to mourning. Owen uses aural sensory imagery combined with auditory qualities such as alliteration and the imagery of funeral rites to highlight the loss of life and humanity as the war tore apart their society and home. The rituals of a funeral being stripped away, bares the anger of the slaughter in itself. This poem is less visceral than many of his other poems such as the show to implicate a more political and personal tone.

The use of the Petrarchan sonnet is used ironically as it is normally used to express love and beauty, juxtaposing the harsh vivid remnants of the First World War. This irony goes beyond the context as the title juxtaposes the ritualistic nature of an elegy criticizing the lack of respect of the lives lost in war. It continues by labelling the Youth as Doomed . This adumbration jars the reader as youth is more commonly associated with life and opportunity as opposed to the inevitable death of the collected group. The use of the collective nouns suggests they are not seen as individuals due the sheer quantity, but rather the waste of war.

The poem starts by critiquing the absence of the bells in order to mourn the men who have lost their lives protecting the nation likening them to the slaughtering of cattle in a dehumanizing simile. This animalistic imagery depicts their senseless multitudinous murders due their subservient allegiance to the nation led ultimately to their death. The repetition of Only in line 2 and 3 emphasizes that they are missing humanity as they are engrossed in destroying the beautiful landscape and that they are encompassed by cruel images of death daily without a reprieve. It also suggests that they are distracted from mourning them due to the ceaseless fight for their own lives. Furthermore, the guns are personified, indicating that the violence or anger that was shown during the war did not come from the soldiers themselves, but from a state provided machine. This could show that the true reasons and violence of the First World War came from the hierarchy and the working class knew little about the true motives of war. The alliteration describing the sounds of war and destruction of rifles` rapid rattle is also an onomatopoeia that really brings the sounds of the guns to life as they drown out the prayers for the fallen soldiers. Even the prayers, hasty orisons , are dampened down, the soft s sounds reflecting the whispers they are spoken in and the rumbling r sounds override it. Owen is suggesting that the actions of war goes against the word of God and that humankind are not listening out for Him in the midst of their chaos. The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells juxtaposes the sentiment of God and Evil as a choir is normally correlated with a church, however it is denoted as demented , unwholesome and unholy in its nature. The phrase sad shires is another example of personification and a form of metonymy as the shires themselves aren t sad, but the people in them are.

The setting of the poem then shifts magnifying on to the nation they left behind and how they will mourn the dead. Immediately, the reader is able to feel the contrast of the silence that lays in the villages heightening the tension and the worry felt. The use of the word boys indicates a sense of naivety and youthfulness rendering their loss even more potent as they were destined to have a full life of joy rather than the violence that has pervaded the world. Their good-byes foreshadow their demise as they are aware they are heading to their death leaving their family to deal with their feminine pallor silently. The final line is littered with long vowels to create a lingering image, by adding gravitas, of the barriers built to hide their evermore grief or perhaps it is alluding to their deaths.

To conclude, this poem was written in recognition of the many deaths and used to critique the tragic waste of life.