Commentary on Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth".

something resembling a funeral, even if it shows only their loved ones weeping. The poem’s overall tone illustrates that Owen despises endorsers of war who do not take into account the full outcome of war and sympathises for the soldiers who may not know what lies ahead of them.The octet in the poem consists of no mourning, it is set to only focus on what is happening on the battlefield. In the first quatrain of the poem Owen is using personification to imply that there is no reinforcement, there is absolutely nothing religious or godly about death.  “Only the monstrous anger of the guns”.It is clear to see that the poet is making a very strong suggestion, due to his repetition of “only the”, that only the guns being fired on the battlefield are to blame for the dehumanising of the soldiers occurring during the war.In the second quatrain of the poem, he is very specific of his word choice to give the impression of the war being very fast and punishing.  “Can patter out their hasty orisons”.It is obvious to see that his use of the word hasty implies the speed at what the soldiers are fighting which gives reason for the soldiers not pausing to grieve.Owen is implying to the reader that the soldier’s original thoughts towards the battle are now changing dramatically.  “No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells”.This suggest that the celebratory attitude towards war has totally changed as soldiers are no longer pattering out their orisons, they are silent and focused on the battle.The poet uses juxtaposition to vary two simple words that are connected together to form irony.  “The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells”.This gives an illusion of hope as we relate choirs to being religious, faithful and innocent, where as this is now contrasted with the idea of demented; connotation of mad or crazy.The sextet totally contrasts with the octet of the poem as it is set to draw attention on the fact that we are no longer back in Britain where all the mourning is taking place. We know this as he shows elements of funeral rituals which reduces the absence of hope such as the mentioning of candles, although no one is actually holding one.Owen uses sibilance in the last two lines creating soft long vowel sounds which gives us the impression of lengthening time which directs the reader of thinking the worst outcome of the war.  “Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds”.The idea of flowers is associated with mourning and his use of the word tenderness shows how much you truly care and gives the idea of fragility.In the very last line of the sextet, he has again used sibilance and also imagery to exemplify that there is nothing surprising or new about death.  “And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds”.This image of dusk and the drawing down of blinds emphasises the number of deaths and how every individual is affected by war in their own way. The drawing down of blinds back in the olden days was a symbol of death, because of his specific word choice this enables us to refer this to the idea of relating when the sun is setting to death. We know that death happens every day, it is a common thing in the world, this fact can also be applied to sun set, which as we know also happens every day.In conclusion, I think Owen has been extremely successful in having an emotional impact on the reader from the poem. I found that his success was attained by the various effective poetic techniques being conveyed throughout the entire poem which include the following: imagery, word choice, personification, alliteration, onomatopoeia, repetition, sibilance, connotations, juxtaposition and rhetorical questions. The reason for the majority of techniques being used for the poem is to emphasise and to enable the emotion within the reader being created to be enlarged and taking into something so much bigger.