How does Wilfred Owen bring out the violence and the futility of war in ” Anthem for Doomed Youth ” ?
Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen is a beautiful war poem. It shows the destruction of war. Here the poet describes a death in a battlefield. He contrasts a death in a battlefield with a normal funeral. It increases the cruelty of a death in the battlefield and the contrast brings out the violence and futility of war very sharply.
He starts the poem with the simile.
” What passing bells for these who die as cattle ? ”
He tells that the soldiers die in the battlefield as cattle. It means they are killed in large numbers and they had dragged to the level of animals. Thogh they do a great service to their country they had to die as cattle. This shows the cruelty and futility of war. The lives of young soldiers are wasted because of a useless thing and he says the soldiers do not get proper funeral rituals. They get only stuttering rifle’s rapid rattle in the place of funeral bells. They only get shrill demented sounds of guns in the place of orisons. That is what they get for their service. They have no one to stay beside them while they are dying. They do not get even a peaceful and calm death. This shows the violence of war.
And the poet says,
” And bugles calling for them from sad shires ”
The bugle sound they get is the crying and lamenting sound of their loved ones. The death of a soldier makes many people sad because maybe their relatives or friends lost him because of a useless war. War only causes destruction but the world never understands that. He says while the soldiers are dying their eyes are glimmering with the tears because of the pain. He compares them to the candles that show the path to heaven.
” What candles may held to speed them up ? ”
He asks this rhetorical question to show their pain and they don’t get any funeral rites. War only causes destruction. Because of the the death of the young men the lives of the girls who loved them are also doomed. Because now they can’t do anything to get back their lovers. He compares girl’s brows to the paleness of the dead body and flowers that soothed the coffin to the tenderness of girl’s heart. Likewise he tells the destruction and futility caused by war. The war is very cruel and people had to sacrifice their lives , happiness and freedom for nothing.
The poet Wilfred Owen uses some techniques to emphasize the reader about the violence of war. Usage of the simile, mentioned before shows the destruction and violence of war. And by using rhetorical questions he emphasizes the reader about the cruelty of the war. And he uses parallelism. Through the whole poem , there is a contrast between a normal funeral and the death of a soldier in the battlefield. This makes reader aware about the pain , cruelty and destruction caused by war. He uses this technique through the whole poem to emphasize that again and again.
And the poet has used so much auditory imagery all through the poem.
” stuttering rifle’s rapid rattle ”
This makes to sense the read about gun sound. Here he has used alliteration and onomatopoeia. This really makes a constant sound of guns in reader’s ears. And he uses,
” shrill demented sound…… ”
This also shows the violence of the war. Likewise he uses so many auditory imageries.
And he uses the words demented , wailing shells etc. to show the violence of a war and the battlefield. And the poem has only 14 lines so that this poem is a sonnet and the poet has sarcastically used that because usually sonnets are love poems but here this poem shows the destruction and cruelty of war and wastage of young lives.
And the poet was also a soldier and he wrote his first hand experiences. So no one could tell these things are lies. It has also made this poem a powerful war poem.
Likewise usage of techniques and parallelism between normal funeral and a soldier’s death in a battlefield has made this poem a powerful one. And it shows the violence and futility of war very clearly.