Anthem for Doomed Youth

...

of faith - expressing its idle presence in the face of such brutality. The assonance of ’no’ and ’nor’, however, postulates a continual lack of such forms of recognition and gives a sense of inertia - the never-changing status and under appreciation of the men. This distortion of religion Owen has conveyed is continued in what is one of the most arguably powerful lines of the poem: ’The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells’ The extremely potent images here create irreconcilable contrasts between the religious symbol of the godly ’choirs’ and their distortion as being ’shrill’ and ’demented’. This onomatepaoic line uses an abundance of sibilance and plosive sounds, coupled with the assonance of the long vowel sounds, imitating the sounds of the shells and bombs themselves. Additionally, the use of the long, muted word ’wailing’ gives a sense of immense pain and suffering and these devices collectively give an absurd and perverse view of the war.

In stanza two, however there is a change of tone as well as a change of setting - rather than the violent, bitter atmosphere of the trenches, Owen transports the reader to the melancholy life at home. Again, he asks a futile question: ’What candles may be held to speed them all?’ to which he answers ’Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes/ shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes’. Here, the idea of rituals has been twisted into not the futile public shows of appreciation, but a more solemn, private display of grief: tears. There is a soft sibilance throughout these lines which gives it a much more sincere and gentle atmosphere reflecting the pure sadness of what the tears and ’goodbyes’ represent: fundamental human suffering and mortality. This is a drastic change in tone; no longer is pathos being evoked through the unjustness of corruptness, but in the poignancy of mellow grieving. The poem concludes on the emphatic line: ’And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.’ This can be perceived as a symbol of death and loss - the metaphorical drawing down of the blinds representing the final seconds of life, emphasized with the image of ’dusk’, something which occurs each day without fail which emphasizes the tragic inevitability. On the contrary, this image could also refer to those at home and their ignorance to accept the reality of war, their lack of insight into the true brutality. However, Owen grammatically crafted this last line in such a way that there is no subject - it is a passive sentence which demonstrates the unwillingness to take responsibility for such a destructive thing.

Despite the clever use of imagery to depict the impact of the war, Owen also incorporates the structure to do so. The poem is in Petrarchan sonnet form - ironically a form usually used for poems that express love, the irony of which emphasizes the absurdity of the war. This may also be a device in which he can shatter the romtanicisation of the ideals of war in a form that is typically poetic and romantic, conflicting it with its violent imagery. Furthermore, the overall meter is iambic pentameter, of which the relentless rhythm mimics the monotonous and tedious quotidian of the soldiers life, with nothing but continued violence. However, Owen creates subtle irregularities in the iambs, for example the inverted first feet in the first stanza, ’only the monstrous anger of the guns ….’ which suggests an instability of war. Furthermore, the last line is completely regular, and slows down the pace of the poem so as to finish on such a final, forceful note of the impact of the war - the culmination of the lack of responsibility, appreciation and humanitarianism.

To conclude, Owen smothers this poem in irony - with the use of sonnet form and its title as an anthem when in conflicts both these notions and its complex contrast of concepts - the true irrationality and ultimate violence of war and its immorality considering the futile nature of faith. In terms of the impact of the war, the covers a wide scope exploring the physical and mental pain in the trenches and comparing it to the somber emotional scars that