The climax in irony is I QUOTE ‘Shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells' I UN-QUOTE; however, just as the poems irony climaxes, we are taken away from the war to the I QUOTE ‘sad shires' I UN-QUOTE. Furthermore, the last two lines of the octet are transition lines: they prepare you for the sestet by slowing the pace and softening the tone, I QUOTE ‘And bugles calling for them from sad shires' I UN-QUOTE.
The poem is divided into two different ideas. The first part's tone is violent, firm and negative; while the second part's is miserable and unhopeful. The mood of the octet and sestet is similar to their tone: angry and depressive. Throughout the sonnet, Owen has used two rhetorical questions: one at the beginning of the octet I QUOTE (What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?) I UN-QUOTE and one at the beginning of the sestet I QUOTE (What candles may be held to speed them all?). I UN-QUOTE
The content of the poem describes the younger soldiers, mainly I QUOTE "boys" I UN-QUOTE who are marching to the front line where they will most probably meet their death. The poem is written for these young boys, hence the title, and the "for youth" is the key point, which backs this up. The poem describes how awful it is at the Front Line, the sights and the sounds, I QUOTE ‘the shrill, demented choir of wailing shells,’ and ‘the stuttering rifles,’ I UN-QUOTE both images of the war. These descriptions are found in the first verse and they help to paint the picture, of what horror and devastation awaits the ‘boys’ on arrival in the front line. It also describes the horrors of war and the aftermath it causes on the soldier’s most loved ones. This is the issue that is represented of war in this poem. The word doomed in the title, highlights the fact that the soldier’s fate was to perish on the battlefield. Owen describes the pointlessness of war as the young men I QUOTE ‘die as cattle’. I UN-QUOTE
Stanza one explains how war is hell on earth and many deaths often are dealt with unemotionally, there being no time for such weakness. Any deaths occurring are dealt with in such a way that little respect is shown to the victim because the frequency of death becomes commonplace. He uses a large amount of descriptive language and techniques highlighting the action on the frontline. The diction and the actual poetic techniques used in the poem all have strong effects and increase the power of the poem. The rhetorical question used in the beginning of both sections of the poem gives the reader an idea of what the whole section is going to be about, because he answers the questions himself throughout the sections, and then expands his thoughts. I QUOTE ‘Rifles rapid rattle’ I UN-QUOTE is alliteration that is used to highlight the pace of the battle and the pure chaos of I QUOTE ‘wailing shells’ I UN-QUOTE. The fury and evilness of the guns is presented to us with the personification the I QUOTE ‘monstrous anger of the guns’ I UN-QUOTE. This is important as it basically gives us the lasting impression that guns, or the actual people behind the war are terribly vice, and the guns, or the soldiers are furious. The onomatopoeia I stuttering rifles actually sounds like the guns, so you feel like you are in the battlefield. That feeling is continued, making you feel like there are endless gun shots coming towards you, with the alliteration ‘riles' rapid rattle’. The poet uses alliteration many more times in the poem and creates strong effects: In the eighth line, I QUOTE ‘sad shires' I UN-QUOTE, the ‘s' sound creates endless sadness itself, eleventh line, I QUOTE ‘Shall shine the hold glimmers of good-byes' I UN-QUOTE, with the context, the ‘s' creates a holy sounds, which contributes to the religion theme, where the ‘g' creates a gloomy affect, and lastly line fourteen, I QUOTE ‘dusk a drawing-down of blinds.' I UN-QUOTE, the ‘d' creates an image of an endless, rough road. Negative dictation is used with examples such as demented, wailing, anger to convey the bitterness of the war and cruel fate the young soldiers are given with and the pointless sacrifice of the young men.
Stanza two goes into more detail about the expected, strange yet "normal" reactions to the frequent deaths. There are many funeral related terms in this stanza some of which are, when seen in the light of death, I QUOTE ‘candles’, ‘flowers’ I UN-QUOTE, both of which are present at any organized funeral, and the final line, I QUOTE ‘And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds’ I UN-QUOTE symbolizes an image of respect. When people were killed at war, or died for any other reason, the families of the dead would draw down their blinds and shut their curtains as a mark of respect enabling them to mourn in private and also let other people know that there had been a death in the family. However, none of these marks of respect were possible in war, as death was so frequent. As far as the mood goes this stanza gives off a more somber mood as the mourning of these soldiers are demonstrated. I QUOTE ‘Holy glimmers of goodbyes’ I UN-QUOTE symbolize the sacredness of life and death and gives off a more religious feeling. This stanza details the loss of loved ones at home and the soreness it causes. Owen brings this issue to mind that war causes the loss of soldiers and pain for loved ones at home.
The main themes of the poem are religion and war, and there are many words to stress these themes. There isn't actually a lot of war vocabulary; however, the adjectives used, such as I QUOTE ‘monstrous', ‘anger', ‘stuttering', I UN-QUOTE etc. empowers the war diction such as I QUOTE ‘gun', ‘rifle', ‘bugles' and ‘shells' I UN-QUOTE. All of these words are in the octet: there is no presence of war vocabulary in the second part of the poem. The religion vocabulary on the other hand is present throughout the poem. In the octet, it is used to mock religion, whereas in the sestet, they are used in a I QUOTE ‘holier' I UN-QUOTE sense.
Throughout the poem, there is an obvious presence of negativity. Besides the actual content, there is a lot of diction used to reinforce the negativity: first in the title ‘Anthem for Doomed youth'. The theme of negativity continues with the question used in the beginning of both the octet and the sestet, and questions give a sense of uncertainty, doubtlessness, and negativity, but also, Owen uses them to make a point. This theme is continued with negative and pessimistic words such as only, no, nor, demented, wailing, sad, mourning, not, and slow. Some of these words have been used more than once and often used closely, which strengthens the effect.
The second poem is in my view the best out of the two. It is one of Owens most famous poems, named Dulce et Decorum Est. Owen's poem gives a metaphorical soldier's account of the reality of war that sharply contrasts the ideas and images that army recruiters illustrate. Through the shocking imagery, and the seemingly real soldier's account, Owen makes his reader experience war. The poem is written in such a way that it is extremely anti-war showing the true pointlessness of war. It is a dramatic and descriptive poem, detailing the event in the perspective of Owen’s experiences. The patriotic view that fighting for one’s country is honorable is challenged as the poem starts off with the trudging struggle of the soldiers. The poem begins by describing the men's appearance. I QUOTE ‘Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, knock-kneed, coughing like hags’ I UN-QUOTE. This paints a picture for us immediately of how the men look and what state of health they are in, battered skeletons in uniforms no longer recognizable as such, worn and defeated. In the following lines we are told how the men appear to have lost their senses. I QUOTE ‘Men marched asleep’ I UN-QUOTE, shows they were moving mechanically like robots with no thought or enthusiasm I QUOTE ‘All went lame all blind; drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots of tired, outstripped Five Nines that dropped behind’ I UN-QUOTE. All of these quotes displaying the true meaningless effect of war and what it does to men, showing that death is now commonplace and ignored completely. These conditions were not thought of before the war, as it could be said that the soldiers were duped into the war.
The poem was written from firsthand experience as Owen had spent a long time on the Front Line, and had experienced all he described.
The second stanza in the poem, describes what could be either an experience or a nightmare of Owens. It is about a gas attack where the men are battling with their gas masks to save themselves from the poisonous substance and the horror of one soldier’s inability to fit the mask before the gas envelopes him and as the soldier loses his battle for life the I QUOTE ‘thick green light, as under a green sea’ I UN-QUOTE drowns him. It details the horrific event of a tragedy occurring in front of Owen’s eyes. Owen describes a man who was unable to put on his mask in time, being engulfed I QUOTE ‘under a green sea, I saw him drowning’ I UN-QUOTE. This event leads to the challenging of the naïve views that dying for ones country is a patriotic act.
The third stanza is one we must take notice of. In some versions of the poem it is linked with the second stanza, but in this version it is separate. Having it separate really emphasizes the image of a terrified man, for whom there is no help. The mention of dreams shows us that Owen possibly has nightmares about this image. During the third stanza, the horrified soldier watches a fellow man suffocate to death because of a gas bomb. He points out that the picture is I QUOTE ‘dim through the misty panes and thick green light’ I UN-QUOTE. The sight is almost like a dream, as I said before, like he could not be witnessing something this horrific in real life. The narrator relays every gruesome detail to appall the reader. The wave of shocking emotion that this vision brings defiantly makes the reader share Owen's anti-war feelings.
The final stanza of this poem is one that concludes Owens personal view on war. He is sharing with us what he has seen, and is trying to convey the message that it is truly awful. In the first line of the stanza Owen says, I QUOTE ‘If in some smothering dreams you too’ I UN-QUOTE implying, see the horrors I have seen. He describes, the wagon on which the dead are I QUOTE ‘flung’ I UN-QUOTE and the blood that I QUOTE ‘comes gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs’ I UN-QUOTE. The final section of the stanza refers to the younger generation whose fathers and grandfathers had fought in the war. When these children ask for some I QUOTE ‘old war stories’ I UN-QUOTE then they must not be glorified thus hiding the true horror of war, purely to satisfy their need “for some desperate glory." They must be told with truth and the understanding that there can be no glory in war, only immeasurable pain and loss. The final stanza continues the reader's stunned emotions. The narrator vividly describes the soldier's dead body. The poor man was haphazardly thrown into the back of a wagon. As the unfortunate men march behind the wagon they are forced to stare at the grotesque face of their asphyxiated friend, a constant, bitter reminder of what this war is doing. The sensory imagery and figurative language that Owen uses makes the reader realize the foolishness of war, and that dying in combat is not sweet and fitting, but rather bitter and shocking. The last sentence in the poem, I QUOTE ‘My friend, you would not tell with such high zest/To children ardent for some desperate glory,/The old lie: Dulce et decorum est/Pro patria mori’ I UN-QUOTE coveys Owen's point of writing the poem. Now that he has enlightened his readers with the read tragedy of war, they will not make the mistake of letting others believe it is patriotic and heroic.
What we must see is the picture the narrator develops is not of proud, patriotic men, but rather men suffering from the horrors they have just lived through. The narrator must turn his back on the I QUOTE ‘haunting flares’ I UN-QUOTE to block out the pain and suffering he just witnessed. Some men limp their way home on I QUOTE ‘blood-shod’ I UN-QUOTE feet because their strong, protective boots have been lost. In the last line of the second stanza the word softly is used to describe lethal weapons. Owen's choice of words effectively displays the horror and pointlessness of war.
The two poems mentioned, have aspects to them, which are very similar throughout. The first and most glaringly obvious is the theme of the poems. All two, Anthem for Doomed Youth and Dulce et Decorum Est, all have a war related theme and story. This may have a lot to do with the fact that they were all written during the time of the First World War and with firsthand experience of it.
The first poem has a much more negative attitude as it describes death and what young fresh faced boys face on arrival at the front line, none of which is positive or good. The second poem however has a completely anti-war view and describes a lot of the horrible and gruesome things which happen when at war. As the war progressed the soldiers began to have a dull acceptance of the horror of events around them, no longer shocked by the cruel death of their friends and comrades. Owen was no different and as his poems revising his own experiences of the war showed in his writing, becoming more and more negative towards it.
The only real other similarity, which is present through all two poems, is the time at which they were written. All of these poems were "war-time" poems and Owen used the war as his inspiration for all. This point is linked to the previous point of comparison. Both poems are really similar. The huge similarity between these poems could also be explained by the fact that they were written within ten months of each other.
In Dulce et Decorum Est the almost disturbing vocabulary and imagery formed is apparent in phrases such as I QUOTE ‘Haunting Flares’, ‘Blood-Shod’, ‘White eyes writhing’ and ‘like a devil's sick of sin’ I UN-QUOTE. These phrases all portray death and fear at its most terrifying, setting a scene that is not present in the first poem where there is innocence and lack of understanding of what war really was like.
In the two poems there is no dialogue and with the exception of the description of the soldier who was gassed there are no other characters throughout the poems.
The poem I personally preferred was the most recently composed, Dulce et decorum Est. When Owen wrote this he was more experienced and had a clear view on what he was writing.
War is a tragedy that is detailed in all of Owen’s poems. He describes war as a horrifying and pointless experience for a young man’s life. He challenges the patriotic view of war as something that is not true and should not be believed. His use of a range of techniques allows the dreadful events of his poems to be visualized by the audience. This allows the point of the actual existence of the human race and the point of war
The two poems which I have compared and contrasted fall into one group, Anti-war. The first and second poems of which I have referred, Anthem for doomed youth and Dulce et Decorum est, are both anti war, the latest being more against war. These were inspired by Owen's changed view on war as he had witnessed the awful sights and sounds of front line combat. It is almost as if he needs to emphasis that the innocence he portrayed in the first poem was a mistaken and bore no resemblance to the true reality of the horror of death in war.
