Eng426 20th century english literature

“Anthem For Doomed Youth”

Excerpt:
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons.

Wilfred Owen’s “Anthem for Doomed Youth” relays the poet’s anger at the terrible effect of the war as well as the death and suffering that comes in its wake. The poem talks about the death of soldiers and how their deaths will be announced and how their goodbyes or funeral will be. Their deaths are likened to the way cows die. The reality of the war dawns on the poet persona as people are killed and injured. The poem is an anthem to honour the soldiers who died in their youth; they are doomed youths that the World War caused to die in their prime.

The passing-bells in Line 1 is the bell that is used to announce the death of someone and to signal that a soul is passing to the great beyond but these soldier’s deaths are not to be announced through the passing-bells but through the monstrous anger of the guns because they died like cattle. Even if the passing-bells are to be rung, they won’t be heard as the sounds of the monstrous angry guns will override the sounds of bells. This is ironical because these soldiers lost their lives to the guns and the guns are used to announce their deaths. They are also deprived of religious prayers and bells and the choirs who sing at their funeral are wailing shells. At the funeral, girls hold out flowers to bid them good bye and there is the expression of grief.

0. Techniques and Themes In Wilfred Owen’s “Anthem For Doomed Youth”

The Use of Contrast: The poem juxtaposes the traditional/ conventional activities and instruments that attend the mourning and funeral of an ordinary or regular (civilian) man and that of the soldiers who died like cattle, whose death is not new and does not come with grief or regret as soldiers die almost every day on the war front and not much value is attached to these deaths. The solemnity that being in the church and at a funeral calls for is also seen as related in the poem.


Use of Images: We have both visual and auditory images in the poem. The visual images include: ‘die as cattle’, ‘anger of the guns’, ‘drawing – down of blinds’, and so on while the auditory images include: ‘passing bells’, ‘rifles rapid rattle’, ‘patter out’, ‘wailing shells’, ‘bugles calling’, and so on.
The central theme in the poem is the waste and emptiness that war brings especially on young and promising soldiers who died in the war.