Anthem For Doomed Youth Flashcards
introduction
This poem sets up an ironic surrogate funeral rite for the deaths of soldiers in the first world war, where most elements of a christian ceremonial funeral are replaced by a brutal and harsh war alternative. The poem is framed in the universal contexts of war, loss and grief.
paragraphs
1) horror of war
2) religion is moribund (in terminal decline)
3) people at home
paragraph 1 on horror of war
1) The poem is ironically written in sonnet form, which is typically a poetic form used to celebrate beauty and love. Here Owen uses it to emphasise the disconnect between the heroic fantasy of war and the horrific reality of cheap impersonal deaths.
2) “what passing-bells for those who die as cattle?” - Owen asks how the soldiers are mourned in war. The question in a way answers itself through Owen’s language. The simile, comparing the soldiers to ‘cattle’, dehumanises the soldiers who are sent to die as cannon fodder. The soldiers seem no more than animals going to the slaughter, conveying how human life becomes worthless in war. Furthermore the use of a collective noun to group the soldiers together shows how impersonal and unceremonious each death is.
3) “only the monstrous anger of the guns” - personification of guns as malign and vengeful force subtly deflects the emotions of war onto the weaponry, suggesting the men were victims of anger and not necessarily angry themselves. Furthermore suggests the pointless nature of war as enemy = guns not soldiers.
4) “only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle” - alliteration of the harsh trill sound evokes the sound of war. Use of continuous present suggests ongoing and never ending suggesting the unrelenting torment of war.
5) Owen’s answer to his question is framed in the anaphoric use of ‘only’ with reference to the savage weaponry of war which underscores the pity and hopelessness of the situation as it reinforces the idea of an absence of humanity, with the soldiers only celebrated by the destructive weaponry of war upon their death.
paragraph 2 on religion in moribund (in terminal decline)
1) “patter out their hasty orisons” - Patter out suggests that the noise of the war is drowning out the soldier’s prayers, but more broadly that the war has displaced their faith in religion. Their prayers are ‘hasty’ suggesting they are rushed, suggests how deep down the soldiers know the futility of religion as their prayers will be no use against the savagery of war.
2) “no…no…nor…nor” - quadruple negative coupled with the list like structure creates a sense of an accumulation of absense, stressing the lack of religious ceremonies or celebrations for the soldiers.
3) “mockeries” - A sense that any religious ceremony would be inadequate and insincere, in the faith of the sacrifice of the men.
4) “demented choir of wailing shells” - Subversion of the reader’s assumption that the choir would be a sharp choir, highlighting the horror of war as the religious ideal is replaced with the cruel reality of war. Wailing is a long grief stricken sound and it is ironic and disturbing that this sound of grief should come from the weapons as opposed to the soldiers’ families, creating sense of isolation.
paragraph 3 on people at home
1) the sestet contrasts strongly to the octet as Owen moves from observing the horror of the battlefield to the aftermath at home. Owen shifts in tone from bitter and angry to more sombre and rueful as he reminds the reader of the grief-stricken people at home, returning to the individuality and preciousness of human life. There is a sense that whilst Religion cannot celebrate this, the love of friends and family can. No formal ceremony but, finally answers question in octet, it is the grief and mourning of loved ones which will celebrate and mourn their life.
2) “not in the hands of boys but in their eyes shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbye” - Candles are symbolic of life and are often lit at in memorial for the dead. However the only light Owen touches on is in the ‘boys’ (purposefully emphasising youth and innocence) eyes. The fact that the boys possess these ‘holy glimmers’ suggests they have taken on the role of the divine since institutionalised religion no longer offers any solutions.
3) “the pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall” - a pall is a cloth used for covering a coffin and again, as with the boys, it seems as though the girls have replaces institutionalised religion, paying more homage to the boys through their remembrance of the individual than all the celebratory gestures in religion can.
conclusion
For me the most important message of the poem is the one created by the final image: “each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds’. Whilst blinds, as a limitary image, suggests an end or closure it is undercut by the repetition of the action implies by ‘each’. This shows how there can never be closure, resolution or an answer. This gives a pathetic and solemn end to the poem.
