In the second stanza the pace is quickly moved on and the rush of the soldiers trying to escape the gas that has intoxicated the air, the reason this is evident is Owens use of exclamation marks, that sets the tone of this stanza to a state of panic and fear filled. ‘Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!’ is the leading factor in making the stanza seem more frightful, and the fact the bad situation that the audience was expecting has happened so quickly. The use of words such as ‘fumbling’ and ‘stumbling’ are words that are related with ‘rushing’ and therefore the audience automatically know that something is very wrong.
Owen describes the man dying in a very traumatic way, without much detail he explains how he is ‘flound’ring like a man on fire…’ which creates the picture of a man trying to make his way out of the cloud of gas alive, but is far from succeeding. Owen watched the man die and was helpless this must have been an awful feeling yet it shows how every man was for himself and every mans single aim was to make it home alive, the fact that he uses a metaphor ‘as under a green sea, I saw him drowning’ is effective because the imagery of a man falling through the thick green smoke and suffocating is described through this phrase.
In the third stanza Owens feelings are clear, he has just seen another soldier die and felt completely useless as he couldn’t turn back because he would have risked his own life, the reason the stanza is so short is because it is emotional and although it’s shorter the use of the powerful, emotional words make you think about what has just happened. ‘Guttering, choking, drowning’
In the fourth and final stanza Owen is addressing his friend who he is writing the poem to in this stanza and the fact that he is using ‘you’ and ‘my friend’ gives a more personal tone and makes it seem more of a private subject and the reason Owen is so angry with his female friend is because she should have been there to see it, he shouldn’t have to describe the face of a dead man to her, he shouldn’t have seen it, he’s angry because he has to be in that environment and he cannot help the fact that someone has died, again feeling helpless. The words that make this stanza so shocking is the ordeal the man went through when he died and how painful the death sounds ‘his hanging face, like a devil’s sock of sin’ this is very effective in the way he says that he shouldn’t have been through this and that the devil must have put him through the dreadful time he had. ‘The old lie’ meaning ‘ it is sweet and fitting to die for ones country’ I personally think the reason Owen wrote this poem was to show his friend the true reality of life at war and the real things you see, not just hear about.
The second Poem ‘Anthem for doomed youth’ was also written by Wilfred Owen in 1917
Is very different from the first poem because it is much more intense and very surreal, the use of similes such as ‘ these who die as cattle’ referring to young soldiers being slaughtered like cattle and the personification used to should alliteration ‘ rifles’ rapid rattle’ exaggerate the scenes of violence we imagine when we think of the war. And the form of the poem differs because it is a lot shorter and much denser; the words are less casual and a lot stronger. The form of the poem is written in a similar way to a sonnet, with fourteen lines. This gives the audience a sense of a story that the poet is trying to tell us something important. This is more of a realization for the audience as to how bad life actually is fighting the war, and how difficult it is to forget events that have happened.
In the first stanza Owen says that the ‘wailing shells’ sounds like a choir and are playing in their honour in their own country back home. He says that although the soldiers are moaning and the shells are wailing, there is no sympathy for the mourners back home, as if the lives of these soldiers were taken almost purposely. The ‘Shires are sad’ could mean that relatives and friends back home are mourning, but are not yet aware that their son or friend has died.
This poem is completely different from the first poem because it is straight away exposing the reader to the battlefront and the suffering the men and their families were going through, whereas the first poem introduced us to the setting first before shocking us, by telling the audience the horrible things that happened.
Metaphors are used in this poem, for example ‘monstrous anger of the guns’ illustrates that there was constant gunfire, as described in the first poem.
The way Owen describes the gunfire then the way the soldiers will never be able to retaliate makes the poem more realistic, in the sense that because of the gunfire the soldiers are dead and will never be able to complete the things they want from life ‘ no mockeries for now for them; no prayers not bells’
This poem is interesting because the first stanza is about the thousands of men that are being unnecessarily slaughtered and is quite fast paced and emotional, whereas the second stanza comes across less agitated and more peaceful, as if Owen was remembering his fellow soldiers that died on the battlefields and reflecting on the mourners he saw when he got back home.
The second stanza describes the emotion and actions families go through at home, when mourning. It seems like the families are suffering almost as much as the soldiers did. ‘ the holy glimmers of goodbyes’ this describes the tears shed over the death of a child or husband or friend on the battlefields and perhaps the regret they felt about them dying for the country, but they had no control over the death they endured and the fact that every soldier is mourned for every evening when darkness falls and the family would pray and mourn together ‘ each slow dusk a drawing – down of blinds’ this suggests that blinds would be drawn as a mark of respect, this still happens today when funerals occur, if curtains aren’t drawn it may be seen as rude and inconsiderate .
The vocabulary in this poem is much different to that of the first poem, simply because of the use of techniques such as alliteration and onomatopoeia and also the fact that this poetry is angrier than the first poem and therefore harsher similes are used.
The main difference about these two poems by Wilfred Owen is the fact that the first poem is describing one mans death whereas the second poem is showing Owen’s personal anger towards the unnecessary slaughter of many men, which is reflected in the title “Doomed Youth”
Similarities and comparisons can be drawn when looking at Siegfried Sassoon’s poems one in particular “Does It Matter?” I think shows Sassoon at his best which I feel holds as much weight in its three shorts stanzas as Owens “Doomed Youth” it comes as no great surprise that these two fine poets were friends in the short time they knew each other before Owens untimely death. “Does it matter?” reflects the attitudes and assumptions of the citizens back home known as the “arm chair civilians”. And Sassoon doesn’t hold back in his distain and disgust in the sarcastic line of the second stanza “there’s such splendid work for the blind;” he uses a lot of repetition and uses the title question in each subsequent verse until the final stanza when the question changes “Do they matter?” although the poem and verses are short it gives a very strong emotive tone that makes you question your own morals and forces you to see that for the soldiers it wasn’t a flippant or casual affair but that those young men were led into the clutches of hell and the few that escaped with their lives deserve our upmost respect and admiration just as the unfortunate majority deserve not to be forgotten. I suppose the old adage of out of sight out of mind is what Sassoon is damningly conveying to us in this poem and that no one thinks about the actual casualties that lost their arms and legs and sight. He forces us realize we all should think before speaking.
In conclusion I find it interesting that Owen has such personal anger issues with the armed forces for putting young men into fight war and I admire Sassoon’s passionate tirades on those that dare belittle his comrades efforts, I understand completely their way of thinking and I think if I was in his position and I had to watch my friends die and dodge unnecessary death I would write stories or poems about my experiences to make my readers aware of exactly what the soldiers went through in order to defend the country, instead of all the nonsense included in textbooks that miss out the most vital part of the war experience, real life versions of what happened.
In my opinion I think the way in which both poets conveyed their thoughts and feelings about the war has made it a frightful topic, the fact they used such descriptive words and made it sound cruel is something I don’t want to think about, but I think it is shameful what those young boys went through especially when they weren’t given an option and even though they fought for our country they were malnourished, miserable and in pain for the whole time they were on the battlefront. This is the true unmasking of war and how it affected the lives of people involved. I feel privileged to have read these poems and shall forever hold the men who fought for my freedom all those years ago in high regard and the war poets that held nothing back and wrote detailed accounts of what life was really like in my opinion should be as renound and celebrated as other prolific writers such as Shakespeare.
