The title starts with the word ‘Anthem’, which is a type of song, or more specifically a hymn. Hymns are traditionally sung at weddings, funerals or church services, which is ironic because the soldiers won’t get a proper funeral. It then goes on to say that they are ‘Doomed Youth’, emphasizing how young the soldiers are and how they have virtually no chance of surviving the war.
The first line is a rhetorical question shown by the ‘What’ at the start and the question mark (‘?’) at the end. It mentions the ‘passing bells’ as if they are funeral bells going on without them and then goes on to mention how they ‘die as cattle’. This comparison of their deaths to the slaughter of animals is angry and shows how little compassion the soldiers, on both sides, have for each other.
The next line answers the first line’s question. It basically says no by using a dash (‘-’) followed by the word ‘Only’ then going on to describe what sound they do get, which is ‘the monstrous anger of the guns’. The words ‘monstrous anger’ are not used in their conventional form but instead used as onomatopoeias to describe how horrible the sounds of the guns really are. This also personifies the sound of the guns and makes it sound louder also.
The next two lines are an enjambment, meaning that they flow together to make one sentence in the poem:
‘Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.’
It says how ‘only’ a certain type of gun can ‘patter out’ the soldiers saying quick prayers before they die. They also have some effective onomatopoeia that also comes in alliteration form as well. ‘Stuttering’ and ‘patter’ are the two onomatopoeic words describing the sound of the guns shooting. The alliteration of the ‘rifles' rapid rattle’ can also be heard as an onomatopoeia because when said it evokes the sound of the guns and also emphasises how important the ‘rifles'’ are in the war.
The two following lines emphasis that the soldiers won’t get anything for dying (everything at a funeral). The words ‘no’ and ‘nor’ are repeated to put this point across, repeating about the ‘bells’ and ‘prayers’ and talking also of the ‘choirs’ ‘mourning’ and of ‘mockeries’. The word ‘mockeries’ implies laughter and jokes which is what they will also not get but also that if they did have a proper funeral, after the way they died, it would be a joke.
The last two lines in the first stanza compares a choir to the sound of bombs and also mentions the people back in England:
‘The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.’
The words ‘shrill’ and ‘wailing’ are onomatopoeias but are horrible sounds imitating the whine of falling shells , compared to the ‘demented’ or mad choir. It then goes on to mention about the ‘bugles’ and the ‘sad shires’ meaning the horns calling out from the sad family and friends to those who are dead.
The second stanza also starts with a rhetorical question saying about ‘candles’ that they won’t have at their funerals. The second and third line then goes on to answer the question by saying that the candles won’t be ‘in the hands of boys but in their eyes’. This means the only ‘lights’ will be the tears in their eyes reflecting the light to make it look like candles as well as the fear of being defeated and being killed themselves. It also says that this is their way of saying goodbye.
The next line says about the girls and how their sadness shall be part of their funeral:
‘The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;’
This compares the women’s paleness, or pallor, to the cloth put over a coffin, being the pall. This is a clever play on words and is a good way of showing how shocked and sad the women really are.
The final two lines make an enjambment and talk of how they will have no flowers but instead have ‘the tenderness of patient minds’, meaning the thoughts and memories the loved ones carry. It then goes on to say how they will not close the curtains but instead the ‘closing’ of another long, lonely day for bereaved families is the same. The phrase, ‘each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.’ gives a powerful mood of sadness which makes the reader give pity and sympathy onto the families.
The second poem Dulce et Decorum Est is quite different from the first poem, Anthem for Doomed Youth. Instead of focusing on everyone in the war it focuses on the journey of a platoon and how in one incident a soldier got killed by poison gas. It is double the length of the first poem making it a double sonnet, which shows that Owen maybe had more to say in this poem than the last. But the other main concentration of the poem is showing that the saying ‘Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’ is a lie. This compared to the first poem is more hard hitting and to the point and yet also more saddening. Yet both the poem’s tone is angry due to Owen’s new found hate for war.
The title is ironic because it says that it is ‘sweet’ and ‘fitting’ to die for your country and yet in this poem is shows it not to be. It puts the image of the glorious death for your country up against the horrific reality, which is the way it really is out on the front line.
The first two lines have many hard sounds in them. Its starts by talking of the regiment, full of young fit men reduced to wheezing tramps or old women that are being crushed under the weight of their back packs. The words ‘Bent double’ and ‘knock-kneed’ are hard, ugly sounds that help us to imagine the hard physical effort being put in by the soldiers.
The next part comes in at line four where it mentions the ‘distant rest’ meaning the base or hospital back in the closest town or city. Its also mentions how they ‘trudge’ back: in a tired lifeless way when the only thing pushing them is their wanting to go home.
Lines five to eight then go on to mention the hardships they were going through on the way back and how some were handling it:
‘Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.’
This shows that most of them were drained of so much energy that while they walked they slept to and even after loosing their boots they still walked on until their feet bleed. They were all going ‘blind’ and ‘lame’ meaning they couldn’t be bothered to look and lift their arms anymore because it wastes too much energy. Dead on their feet they become ‘deaf’ to the ‘hoots’, meaning the bombs that are flying down behind them, even though the bombs are well out of date and out classed.
The next stanza starts with direct speech that begins normally then goes into a shout and panic:
‘Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!’
This phrase is sudden and dramatic and gives a straight forward initial idea of what is happening. The rest of this line and the next line goes on to say how the soldiers were ‘fumbling’ in a panic with the ‘clumsy helmets’, meaning that they were difficult to put on. The next couple of lines in this stanza goes on to say that there was still someone struggling to get their helmet on and was ‘flound’ring’ or stumbling around like he was ‘in fire or lime’.
The last couple of lines in the second stanza compare the green cloud of chlorine gas to a ‘green sea’ in which the soldier is ‘drowning’ in. This is then followed up in the next two lined stanza where the poet refers to himself being in a nightmare ‘helpless’ towards the dying soldier and then the soldier ‘plunges’ at him while ‘choking’ and again he refers to the man ‘drowning’. The words ‘choking’ and ‘guttering’ are onomatopoeias that are referring to the sounds that he is making, mainly coming from his mouth.
The final stanza has only the one full stop at the end because it is building up to a climax. It describes how the man is reacting to the chlorine gas:
‘If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues-’
The word ‘flung’ means to be thrown violently as if there is nothing that can be done with him and they just can’t be bothered. The third line is graphic and the repeating of the ‘i’ in ‘white’ and ‘writhing’ is empowers this line considerably. The next line then compares the dying soldier to a demonic being (someone in hell) then goes on to say how he is ‘gargling’ on his blood as he coughs it up from his ‘froth-corrupted lungs’. This is only one of the few places in this poem that onomatopoeia is used whereas in the first poem they were used a lot. It is then said it is like he has an ‘obscene’ ‘cancer’. Throughout this piece it uses ugly images as well as repulsive sounds whereas the first poem wasn’t as descriptive, and that is why the second poem has more depth because it is more descriptive.
The final part of this stanza and the whole poem is slightly sarcastic at first to go on to be a horrible truth. The main words on the last two lines are ‘Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’ meaning that it is sweet and fitting to die for your country. This was taught in schools around the country because Latin was the only other language learnt at the time, and it was taught by people who had never gone to war before, therefore never had the experience to know what it was like and the naive and innocent children believed it. This is said to be a ‘Lie’ by Wilfred Owen having had the experience of war and he emphasises this by capitalizing the letter ‘L’.
I believe that both poems are strong in their own way. Anthem for Doomed Youth uses an angry tone at first then makes a change to a mellow tone to make you feel sad that the soldiers won’t get a proper funeral and that the usual tasks performed by the families and friends, after the funeral won’t be carried out e.g. Drawing of blinds. Also the vast amount of onomatopoeias used does evoke as strong atmosphere as well as the unpleasantness of the sounds themselves.
Dulce et Decorum Est uses more description and metaphors as a way of putting across its point, which is the horrible truth that its horrible at war, especially the way in which you die. It also uses similes to show the way in which the soldier moved violently as he died. Also, Owen puts himself into the poem to show that he was there and to prove that it really does happen like that. This implies that it can be traumatising to see something like that and that it is so nauseating that it can only be explained in this most elaborate way.
Dulce et Decorum Est is the most effective and the most powerful poem because it shows how horrible war really is and how hard it is to be at war. It also shows, as well as the in depth account of how sickening it is to die, that everything learnt in school isn’t necessarily true unless the teacher has had experience in the matter or knows someone who has and has told them about it.