Venera Kameri

Horrors of war in the poem “Anthem for Doomed youth”

"Anthem for Doomed Youth" is a poem written in 1917 by Wilfred Owen portraying war and the victims
of war. (First World War) During that war, the most soldiers were young men, the youth. Themes:
Nationalism, horrors of war, waste, ritual and remembrance, symbols: cattle, choirs, candles, bells.
Figures of speech are: personification, simile, metaphor, imagery, irony, alliteration, rhetorical question.
Even though it is a Petrachean sonnet in form consisting an octave and sestet by the rhyme its changes
since it follows the Shakespearean scheme ABAB / CDCD / EFFE / GG. In this essay I will focus on the
horrors of war as a major theme.

The title of the poem is very ambiguous and ironical. It suggests two contradictory words such ‘Anthem’
and ‘Doomed’. Anthem denotes to a song/hymn of gladness and praise but ‘doomed youth’ suggests
that this poem is certainly not making anybody dance or cheer up. How can a soldier be glad while he is
doomed? By the title of the poem Anthem for Doomed Youth, he mocks at the patriotic perceptions
about war. The image ‘passing bells’ contrasts with the horrific experience of war where man dies like
cattle. Passing bells denote to church bells which are rung at someone’s funeral, but for these doomed
youth who is dying for his country, there are no ‘passing bells’. Rather angry sounds of guns are
attributed to this youth. In prisons, these young ones are receiving rifle fires. In Owen’s war poems,
allusion and references have always an organizing function. The irony in his poems generally thrusts in
two directions towards the source of the illusion or towards the situation itself. On the other hand,
youth, it refers to the youth that is uncertain of their survival through the day.

The first stanza of ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ continues in the pattern of a pitched battle, as though it
were being written during the Pushover the trenches. Owen with the usage of rhetorical question
metaphorically “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?” (l.1) is comparing the young soldiers to
cattle to show that they weren't getting much respect. The use of simile “as cattle” describes the
"doomed youth" as "dying cattle." The simile is showing how the deaths of the soldiers are just like
cattle, slaughter without any feeling of regret or remorse. This pertains to the youth because they are
going to be raised by having very little feelings towards their enemies. With the use of anaphora “only
the” and use of personification and alliteration in “Only the monstrous anger of the guns/Only the
stuttering rifles' rapid rattle/Can patter out their hasty orisons” (l.2-4) (orisons are a type of prayer) the
poet makes the readers hear the rattling within the poem ironically, the use of onomatopoeia for the
guns and shells humanizes war far more than its counterparts. Additionally, alliteration, caesura and
personification used in lines “No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells/ “Nor any voice of
mourning save the choirs/ The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells (l-5-8) indicate that these young
soldiers die without a proper ceremony without prayers and church bells. Firstly, this shows the fact that
dead soldiers are not getting the proper burials and the respect that they deserve for losing their lives
fighting in war, and secondly points out Owen’s lack of faith; he believes that war has overshadowed
faith, that it has taken the place of belief.

In the second stanza again starting with a rhetorical question “What candles may be held to speed them
all?” (l.9) Ironically, this line symbolically shows the insignificance of their deaths, no respect, no
emotion, no humanity as no ‘candles’ are held representatively to honor their death. The usage of
metaphor in the lines “Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes…. And each slow dusk a drawing-down
of blinds” (l.10-14), Owen moves away from the war to speak about the people who have been affected
by it: the civilians who mourn their lost brothers, fathers, grandfathers, and uncles, the ones who wait
for them to come home and wind up disappointed and miserable when they don’t. The acute loss of life
that Owen witnessed in the war is made all the more poignant and heartbreaking in the second stanza,
which, compared to the first, seems almost unnaturally still. He speaks about the futility of mourning the
dead who have been lost so carelessly, and by making the mourners youthful, he draws further
attention to the youthfulness of the soldiers themselves. Note the clever use alliteration in words like
“pallor” and “pall” most often associated with death or dying. Owen also frames this second stanza in
the dusk. This is to signify the end, which of course for many of the soldiers it was their end. The final
line the use of alliteration “And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds” highlights the inevitability and
the quiet of the second stanza, the almost pattern-like manner of mourning that has now become a way
of life. It normalizes the funeral and hints at the idea that this is not the first, second, nor last time that
such mourning will be carried out.

In my opinion, Owen having itself experienced war used the purpose of art that lead to reality. Wilfred
Owen describes his purpose of art in his poem “Anthem for Doomed Youth”. His poem “Anthem for
Doomed Youth set our attitude towards war”. Owen writes poetry with an intense focus on the
outcomes of war, which is death of the ones who fight and suffering of the ones left alive with an
extraordinary insight of the human psyche and experience. By combining the genres of sonnet and elegy
creates the reality of war through his poems by describing the terrible conditions in battlefields, the lost
of so many lives and by the title mocks the ones that start wars but never fight one.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
242139281_A_Simple_Analysis_of_Artistic_Conception_in_Anthem_for_Doomed_Youth

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291068895_Owen%27s_Anthem_for_Doomed_Youth

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/294679726_Owen
%27s_Antiphonal_Response_to_Tradition_Etymology_and_Genre_in_Anthem_for_Doomed_Youth