What kind of picture does Wilfred Owen’s “Anthem for doomed youth” present

about war?
The poem “Anthem for doomed youth” by Wilfred Owen is a touching war
poem that depicts with the deepest sympathy, the tragic disillusionment about
war. He does not poeticize or romanticize over war falsely rather than exposes its
grim, cruel inhuman side with convincing authority.
He strikes a note of warning to the creation of the greedy ambition of the cruel
and selfish men posing as patriots.
In his poem the poet helplessly mentions the tragic fate of numerous young
soldiers who go to the war fronts never to return. His poem vibrates with a frank
realism about the gruesome reality of war. Owen holds up for a dismal picture of
the departure of the soldiers. The poet knows that all of the soldiers who were
going to the battlefield would not return. Most of them would be killed in the
front. Only a very few of them might return for whom there would be no
welcome with beating of drums, passing bells, no prayers for them. Only the
monstrous guns and rifles boom for them. The poet is full of pity for the young
soldiers who would be brutally killed at the prime of life only to satisfy the
ambition of the national leaders. Owen knows all these and so his poem
embodies the pathos and tragedy of war.
The poet also strongly feels that these soldiers now going to the battle field were
fully conscious of their impending doom, where they were ruthlessly engaged in
killing or being killed. The horrors of war fill their mind, and while grappling with
the veritable dance of death, they had no time for the luxury of the sweet
reminiscences and tender emotions like love and affection.