Castro 1

Elena Castro

Renee Ward

English 111

July 14, 2008

“A lament of death”

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) is a war poet who was a soldier during the World

War I. This war is called the Great War because new and powerful weapons were

introduced. Millions of young people died because of the war. The title of his poem

“Anthem for Doomed Youth” gives the first impression of what the poem is about. It

is a lament for the young men who were called to die unnecessarily in an

unjustifiable war. The author in the poem criticizes the pointlessness of the war that

only caused the death of millions of young men. The following paragraphs show

how the author uses figurative language expresses his anger and sadness that arise as

a result of disrespect for those soldiers who died on the battlefield. The author uses

literary tools like simile, imagery, irony, alliteration, metaphor, personification and

onomatopoeia to convey the theme of the poem.

The first verse expresses the author’s anger against the war and talks about

the environment the in which the soldiers died. Owen opens his stanza with a

rhetorical question to engage the reader to keep reading. He wants to let the

audience know how mistreated the soldiers are at a war. Therefore, to convey the

idea he uses a simile of men dying as farm animals when he states, “What passing-

bells for these who die as cattle?”(Owen, Wilfred, 1). In order to express his anger,
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he creates an imagery of the war and the sound of weapons, such as the war as the

funeral of the fallen soldiers. For example when he says “Only the monstrous anger

of the guns” (Owen, 2) he personifies the guns with a human quality, monstrous

anger, to refer the capacity of the guns and the vast steams of bullets over the soldiers

killing them one by one. The potent guns are made to destroy and kill, and the

reference to them helps build the imagery of a destructive war.

Similarly the author uses the concepts of onomatopoeia and alliteration to form

the image of the continuous sounds of the weapons. He states, “Only the stuttering

rifles’ rapid rattle” (Owen, Wilfred, 3) which uses the words “stuttering” and “rattle”

to represent the sound of the weapons as real while reading the words. Like

onomatopoeia, alliteration is used in the continue repetition of the “r” which helps to

form the imagery of the maintain resonance of the arms shooting efficiently. Also in

line 4, “Can patter out their hasty orisons”(Owen, 4) Owen accentuates his fury,

when he expresses how the shooting sound represents the prayers. There is not a

moment when the war actually stops to consider those men facing death.

In the same way the author continues drawing attention to the injustice of the war

and the lack of sorrow felt for those young soldiers when he affirms “No mockeries

now for them, no prayers nor bells”/ “Nor any voice of mourning save the

choirs”(Owen, 5, 6) suggesting that there are no comforting sounds like bells or kind

voices to console the young soldier while facing death. Prayers and bells are symbols

used in the church to honor the dead, however, the soldiers only get to listen the

horror of the bullets ready to kill them. Owen establishes a discrepancy between

realities; what the soldiers are living and experiencing, and the honor are they
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supposed have. He links with irony the images of the destructive war, such as shells,

guns and rifles to religious ceremonies such as bells, prayers, choirs. The weapons’

sounds paradoxically symbolize the religious ceremonies in burials. Once again the

author is establishing the desperation and discomfort of the soldiers.

The second verse is filled with a feeling of emptiness and misery, which contrasts

with the tone of irritation and fury described above. Owen starts as well with a

question, “What candles may be held to speed them all?” (Owen, 9) which stress the

idea of what is their mourning. Consequently the author communicates that there is

no formal goodbye for those souls. For example, when he declares “Not in the hands

of boys, but in their eyes”/ “Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes”(Owen 10,

11), it means that their comrades will be the only ones will have a glimpse of sorrow.

The author also uses a metaphor to compare the friends with funeral flowers to

convey the idea of sadness and gloom expressing the experience of the soldiers when

he says “Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,”. The funeral flowers come

to be those friends that were close to the soldier when facing the death and who took

a few seconds to consider the death of their friend. Moreover, the last line of the

poem suggests the irrelevance of the death of young men. He states” And each slow

dusk a drawing-down of blinds” (Owen, 14) pertaining in a figurative language to

the horrific nature of war. Which is to send the nation’s youth to their demise as fast

as they can be pumped out. The army keeps sending people to the war even though

millions of them die.

Wilfred Owen conveys the meaning of his poem by using very effective

literary devices that help to understand the sadness and sorrow of soldier’s
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experiences in the war world I. It is a war that he sees as unnecessary and that cost

the death of very young men. He emphasizes and catches the noises of the battlefield

and the symbols used in the church to give a very descriptive idea of how unjust the

death is.
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Works Cited

Owen, Wilfred, “Anthem for Doom Youth”

The Longman Anthology of British Literature Second Compact

Ediction, Vol. B. Ed. David Dmarosch. Toronto: Perarson Longman,

2004. Owen 1100-1101.

893-1918)