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In the poem ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, Owen illustrates his theme of the devastating loss of youth. The title to brings to mind the hope of a song of praise, but Owen uses this to his advantage. He emphasises his theme through the words “Anthem”, “Doomed” & “Youth” in the title of the poem are juxtaposed to highlight the brutality & reality of war. The word “Youth” normally brings to mind happiness and joy. Owen places “Youth” next to the word “Doomed” which illustrates to the audience the stress and hopelessness of the youth during war. The word “Anthem” usually associates with a patriotic song or song of praise, Owen draws to mind the fact that these boys have nothing to sing about during the chaos of war. Owen effects the thoughts and feelings of people that have not experienced war for what it is, the major loss of innocent lives. Owen shows the significance of his poetry through the title, giving the audience a sense of feeling for the poem.
Owen also shows the mental effects on the young soldiers as they are killed and thrown away to die through the poem “Anthem for Doomed Youth”. Owens main theme is the fact that the young soldiers do not get the proper funeral they deserve. The opening line “What passing bells for those who die as cattle?” the use of this rhetorical question illustrates numbers of soldiers massacred as if they were cattle, shredding the blood of youth, their pain, and death in large numbers. Owen uses onomatopoeia and personification in the bombs to represent the harshness of the battlefield, as the soldiers had to endure the sounds of “wailing shells” as they brutally diminish the soldiers mind. Owen compares the funeral at home compared to the funeral on the battlefield. The “holy glimmers” interpreted as tears, in the eyes of the soldiers, and funeral bells are replaced with the sounds of weapons firing. Owen shows that during war soldiers’ deaths are seen to be insignificant. Owen shows the insignificance of human life and the mental horrors as young men are brought to tears, the devastation of war and the savage mean to kill people.
Owen uses onomatopoeia in Anthem through “stuttering rifles rapid rattle” this line demonstrates the continuing slaughter of men. The use of the word ‘rapid’ infers not only the speed of the guns but the speed of which lives are being taken away. The use of onomatopoeia is also used in conjunction with alliteration in the “rifles rapid rattle”. This line depicts the sound of the guns. Also how the line not easily orated, and this implies that it is a hard time, a time of disparity. The sounds of guns fire also replaces the grieving people you would normally find when a death occurs. Owen significantly changes the audience’s opinion of the war showing that there is no time to grieve when people are dying quicker than a gun can fire. Through the use of harsh consonants in his language, Owen conveys his message of hardship for soldiers during war, the loss of innocent lives, the reality of the battlefield and the horror and savagery of war.
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Futility opens gently but dramatically with a command from a soldier “Move him into the sun”. This is an act of desperation as the soldier does not want to accept the fate of this soldier. His reason for moving him is that the suns touch “awoke him once”. Owen then contrasts the sun’s rejuvenating power with the wintry world of death: “Until this morning and this snow”. This metaphor is used strongly in this poem including the second stanza, suggesting the sun is a God-like and life-filled figure and the winter of France is filled with death. Owen ends the stanza with a mock-like personified sentence that he would still, nonetheless like to believe: “If anything might rouse him now, the kind old sun will know.”
In the second stanza, Owen moves away from the soldiers’ body to question to bigger picture of life itself. He opens by praising the sun and re-stating that it achieved the creation of the earth: “Think how it wakes the seeds – Woke, once the clays of a cold star”. The soldier cannot grasp the fact that if it can do this, why it can’t breathe life back into a single man. Owen continues to question why this beautiful creature that has been created with “limbs, so dear-achieved” and “sides full-nerved” cannot be “stirred” and re-awoken.
The second part of stanza two is where the tone of Owen becomes aggravated. The use of a rhetorical question “Was it for this the clay grew tall?” keeps the reader thinking and helps imagine and understand just how War changes people, to question existence. Owen is asking did we become such a beautiful being to be brutally murdered and wiped off the earth. His tone continues when he again uses another rhetorical question, that is the ultimate question of all: The meaning of life. Owen presents the reader with “- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil to break earth’s sleep at all?” This was a deliberate technique used by Owen. Although this question was fuelled with, at the time, grief, confusion, anger and sadness, it is still a question that remains un-answered today. It leaves the reader thinking and consumed in his world of poetry.
As Futility questioned the meaning of life, Owen’s poem The Last Laugh can somewhat backup his on-going question as this poem describes 3 soldiers who all exclaim three different comments and yet all meeting the same fate: Death.
As mentioned, the three soldiers all have their own stanza. The first opens with “'O Jesus Christ! I'm hit,' he said; and died.” The second line addresses whether he meant it religiously or if it was blasphemes, either way it doesn’t matter, we find out in the first line that he died. The rest of the stanza continues in suggesting the many ways he could have died. “The bullets chirped – in vain! Vain! Vain!” In this sentence alone, Owen has used to techniques. The first is personification; the whole poem, including the title revolves around personification. The title, The Last Laugh, is in fact talking about the machinery and weaponry of war, suggesting at the end of the day, in the battle of man versus machine, machine will always win. In this context, Owen says that the bullets “chirped”. The second he uses is repetition. This helps to emphasize the non-stop firing of the guns, and this is again emphasized in the next line where it’s said: “Machine-guns chuckled – tut-tut! Tut-tut!”.
The second stanza, like the first contains personification. This time, after the soldier helplessly cries to his mother and father, he “Then smiled, at nothing, childlike, being dead”. After the shrapnel cloud has done its designed job of killing the young soldier, it then “Leisurely gestures” the soldier calling him a fool. The reason for this is that even though thousands of men have died already before this man, men are still trying to defeat machine.
The third man whose fate has been set, is crying to his significant other “Till, slowly lowered, his whole face kissed the mud.” – Just like he would of slowly and passionately kissed his partner, his relationship now is not with a human but the mud, or death. The personification in this verse seems to be toned the most vicious. “And the Bayonets' long teeth grinned” is a statement that the reader can imagine, even though not physically possible, when personified it can really show the mercilessness of war. The poem is ended with “And the Gas hissed”, Owen’s deliberate ending show’s no guns or loud noise and yet there is still that horrific image of war.
Wilfred Owen’s poetry is engaging and can truly bring a reader into his world of poetry. All three of these poems, Dulce et Decorum Est, Futility and The Last Laugh all use techniques that achieve this and not just leaving the reader with an engaging simple story, but questions that relate to us as individuals and society
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Good Evening/Morning Teachers and fellow students, today is the day that marks Wilfred Owens Inclusion into the War Poets Hall of Fame. Owens poetry was different to that of some other types of war poets of his time because he was courageous enough to make his ‘attacks’ on the government and the significant loss of life. His Ideas and techniques are presented throughout the two poems “Dulce et Decorum Est” and “Anthem for Doomed Youth”. Owen explores the truths of war in these poems through themes such as; war as the horrific and savage scene it is, the disparity between reality of the battlefield and the perception of what war is at home. Owen shows the devastation of war on the human being and soul, not only the physical but the mental effects of war. The soldiers are influenced by government propaganda, they are ‘told’ to die for their country; the betrayal, conspiracy and devastating loss of innocent youth. Owen is able to portray these truths through his powerful poetry. Throughout his poems he uses allusions, guttural consonants, onomatopoeia and other techniques to create powerful messages that war is, to quote Owen himself, “to hell and back”.
Dulce et Decorum Est brings the realisation that war is not as it is portrayed to the public, but the allusion that the government gives to the country. This is shown through the title “Dulce et Decorum Est”. This title means that it is ‘sweet and honorable to die for ones country’ this allusion throughout the poem shows through irony and sarcasm that it is the ‘The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.’ This shows how war is everything but sweet and honorable it is about the death and horror brought into people’s lives. War equals death. The description of the soldier drowning in the blood of his froth corrupted lungs certainly negates this. Owen shows the unknown fact that men are dying for their country in a horrible way. Owen is hiding it in another language, just as the government was hiding the truth from their country, letting people kill themselves. This is very different to the poets during Owens time, as he was not glorifying war, but exposing the devastating affect war had on humankind. This is used in conjunction with the disparity between war on the battlefront and the corruption of the perception of a courageous and glorious place to be.
In the poem ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, Owen illustrates his theme of the devastating loss of youth. The title to brings to mind the hope of a song of praise, but Owen uses this to his advantage. He emphasises his theme through the words “Anthem”, “Doomed” & “Youth” in the title of the poem are juxtaposed to highlight the brutality & reality of war. The word “Youth” normally brings to mind happiness and joy. Owen places “Youth” next to the word “Doomed” which illustrates to the audience the stress and hopelessness of the youth during war. The word “Anthem” usually associates with a patriotic song or song of praise, Owen draws to mind the fact that these boys have nothing to sing about during the chaos of war. Owen effects the thoughts and feelings of people that have not experienced war for what it is, the major loss of innocent lives. Owen shows the significance of his poetry through the title, giving the audience a sense of feeling for the poem.
Owen uses visual representations in Dulce to show the mental and physical effects on the soldiers going through the punishment of war and how this changes the young soldiers. The harshness of the simile “bent double like old beggars” illustrates how the soldiers look, showing them as crestfallen and disheartened, “bent”. This is not how soldiers are normally depicted they should have their heads held high and marching tall. Owen shows how the young men of war have now become old beggars; they have aged and are begging for their lives; lives that may be taken away from them at any time. This along with “an ecstasy of fumbling” shows the urgent need for the salvation of one’s life. The ecstasy of fumbling to put on their gas masks shows the audience how the soldiers have been forced into the bent and begging state to save their lives. The soldiers are beyond exhaustion, they have to find the energy to put on their gas mask or they will face death. The innocence of youth has been lost. Some have lost their lives; others have lost their mental state.
Owen also shows the mental effects on the young soldiers as they are killed and thrown away to die through the poem “Anthem for Doomed Youth”. Owens main theme is the fact that the young soldiers do not get the proper funeral they deserve. The opening line “What passing bells for those who die as cattle?” the use of this rhetorical question illustrates numbers of soldiers massacred as if they were cattle, shredding the blood of youth, their pain, and death in large numbers. Owen uses onomatopoeia and personification in the bombs to represent the harshness of the battlefield, as the soldiers had to endure the sounds of “wailing shells” as they brutally diminish the soldiers mind. Owen compares the funeral at home compared to the funeral on the battlefield. The “holy glimmers” interpreted as tears, in the eyes of the soldiers, and funeral bells are replaced with the sounds of weapons firing. Owen shows that during war soldiers’ deaths are seen to be insignificant. Owen shows the insignificance of human life and the mental horrors as young men are brought to tears, the devastation of war and the savage mean to kill people.
The use of Guttural consonants throughout Owens poem Dulce et Decorum Est are shown through words such as “guttering, choking, drowning” the use of “t” “k” and “d” emphasise the harshness of war. These words describe how a young soldier is dies in war; there is nothing smooth and flowing about the death of a soldier. It tells of the death of a young soldier just because he wasn’t quick enough to put on his gas mask. The harsh sound when these words are spoken help set the theme of a pointless death in war. This coupled with the present participle, “...ing” make the poem powerful to the reader showing that the scene is not in the past, it’s happening now, putting the reader at the scene of the horror and illustrates the urgency and death of the battlefield. Owen used this to convey his message to the home front, to show the effects of war through the harshness of his language, depicted with the loss of innocent life within our society.
Owen uses onomatopoeia in Anthem through “stuttering rifles rapid rattle” this line demonstrates the continuing slaughter of men. The use of the word ‘rapid’ infers not only the speed of the guns but the speed of which lives are being taken away. The use of onomatopoeia is also used in conjunction with alliteration in the “rifles rapid rattle”. This line depicts the sound of the guns. Also how the line not easily orated, and this implies that it is a hard time, a time of disparity. The sounds of guns fire also replaces the grieving people you would normally find when a death occurs. Owen significantly changes the audience’s opinion of the war showing that there is no time to grieve when people are dying quicker than a gun can fire. Through the use of harsh consonants in his language, Owen conveys his message of hardship for soldiers during war, the loss of innocent lives, the reality of the battlefield and the horror and savagery of war.
In conclusion Wilfred Owen uses many complex themes that show the world the significant horrors of war, major losses of war and the disparity of the battlefield and the effects of war at home. Throughout “Dulce et Decorum Est” and “Anthem for Doomed Youth” Owen has shown several techniques to justify his arguments to the audience and what has just been illustrated to you. Based on the crux of the arguments presented, I trust that Wilfred Owen will be included into the War Poet’s Hall of Fame. Thank you
