Wilfred Owen's Use Of Personification In Anthem For Doomed Youth

The poem by Wilfred Owen, “Anthem for Doomed Youth,” the descriptive language used can give readers a view of how detrimental war is for young men. “Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, -- The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells.” (Owen) This quote means that nothing can restore these men back to their original selves.

As an anti-war poet, Wilfred Owen uses his literary skills to express his perspective on human conflict and the wastage involved with war, the horrors of war, and its negative effects and outcomes. As a young man involved in the war himself, Owen obtained personal objectivity of the dehumanisation of young people during the war, as well as the false glorification that the world has been influenced to deliver to them. These very ideas can be seen in poems such as 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' and 'Dulce ET Decorum EST Pro Patria Mori'. Owen uses a variety of literary techniques to convey his ideas.

This all aims at promoting the emotion of pity, to empathize upon the suffering forced upon the soldiers that Owen wishes the audience to feel, to recognize the irony on the glorification of war.

Throughout history, poetry was often used in conflict with glorified or ambiguous images of war being presented to the people at home, revealing the truth and brutality of war. Bruce Dawe, Kenneth Slessor, Carol Ann Duffy and Wilfred Owen are well-known anti-war poets who express their concerns ad objections of war through poetry. Dawe’s ‘Homecoming’ and Slessor’s ‘Beach Burial’ explore the vastness of war and the futile magnitude of soldiers who had fallen in battle, never to return home. Contrastingly, Duffy’s ‘War Photographer’ and Owen’s ‘Arms and the Boy’ comment on the disability of psychologically returning home, exploring the corruption of innocence and youth, with those involved in war never to return home as the same person.

“In his poetry, Wilfred Owen depicts the horror and futility of war and the impact war has on individuals.”

Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” is a poem made of four stanzas in an a, b, a, b rhyme scheme. There is hardly any rhythm to the entire poem, although Owen makes it sound like it is in iambic pentameter in some lines. Every stanza has a different amount of lines, ranging from two to twelve. To convey the poem’s purpose, Owen uses an unconventional poem style and horrid, graphic images of the frontlines to convey the unbearable circumstances that many young soldiers went through in World War I. Not only did these men have to partake in such painful duties, but these duties contrasted with the view of the war made by the populace of the mainland country. Many of these people are pro-war and would never see the battlefield themselves. Owen’s use of word choice, imagery, metaphors, exaggeration, and the contrast between the young, war-deteriorated soldiers and populace’s favorable view of war creates Owen’s own unfavorable view of the war to readers.

The implications of the war in Ian McEwan's ‘Atonement' and Wilfred Owen's poetry go far beyond putting their work into a historical perspective. The war's true importance in ‘Atonement' is to help delve deeper into the psyche of a character that has lost all consciousness of reality in this way Owen uses war as a symbol of the tragedy of human life. Both texts reflect on the idea that suffering, waste, violence and evil are the necessary conditions of human life and more importantly they shed light on the unspoken soldier's experiences that could not have their story told in any other way.

Wilfred Owen's war poems central features include the wastage involved with war, horrors of war and the physical effects of war. These features are seen in the poems "Dulce Et Decorum Est" and "Anthem for Doomed Youth" here Owen engages with the reader appealing to the readers empathy that is felt towards the soldier. These poems interact to explore the experiences of the soldiers on the battlefields including the realities of using gas as a weapon in war and help to highlight the incorrect glorification of war. This continuous interaction invites the reader to connect with the poems to develop a more thorough

Wilfred Owen is almost begging someone (probably the ones who recruit the youth) to tell the world the truth about war, how tarrying everyone is and how difficult is to go on, to keep the hope. For the soldiers there are no dreams of a noble death that everyone will remember through stories. There are no legends that will become myth in their fighting, but real people and real horrific death. The concept of “heroism” that exists from classical literature is not longer valid.

Wilfred Owen’s poetry effectively conveys his perspectives on human conflict through his experiences during The Great War. Poems such as ‘Futility’ and ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ portray these perceptions through the use of poetic techniques, emphasising such conflicts involving himself, other people and nature. These themes are examined in extreme detail, attempting to shape meaning in relation to Owen’s first-hand encounters whilst fighting on the battlefield.

In the last few lines of the poem Owen mentions what when they die they don't have a decent funeral, merely memories of those they left behind, "but in their eyes shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes. " It reminded me mainly how the soldiers weren't the only ones who had suffered throughout the war, all those loved ones that they left behind had nothing to bury or see for the last time, just memories of their husbands, sons, brothers, fathers and uncles. The poem itself flows smoothly as Owen keeps the rhythm going at a slow and steady pace, causing the reader to think about it more carefully, using mainly full stops rather commas. This may suggest that Owen wants the reader to stop for a moment and think about what he just said, to try and picture it in you mind, "Only the monstrous anger of the guns."

Wilfred Owen can be considered as one of the finest war poets of all times. His war poems, a collection of works composed between January 1917, when he was first sent to the Western Front, and November 1918, when he was killed in action, use a variety of poetic techniques to allow the reader to empathise with his world, situation, emotions and thoughts. The sonnet form, para-rhymes, ironic titles, voice, and various imagery used by Owen grasp the prominent central idea of the complete futility of war as well as explore underlying themes such as the massive waste of young lives, the horrors of war, the hopelessness of war and the loss of religion. These can be seen in the three poems, ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ and

Poems using strong poetic technique and devices are able to create a wide range of emotions from the readers. Wilfred Owen’s poetry effectively uses these poetic techniques and devices to not only create unsettling images about war but to provide his opinion about war itself with the use of themes within his poem. The use of these themes explored Owen’s ideas on the futility of war and can be seen in the poems: Anthem for Doomed Youth, Futility and The Next War. The poems provide unsettling images and belief of war through the treatment of death, barbaric nature of war and the futility of war.

The manipulation by Owen’s superiors expose tragedy, as soldiers are being used like cattle to fight a battle with no cause. Throughout his poems, Owen does not portray anger as the enemy, but he is angry at those who are sending men over to fight the war. These who are affectively his superior and his rulers of the country, he is angry at the people who are

For thousands of years mankind has been obsessed with the subject of war, from the clash of swords to the bitter thunder of artillery mankind has brought upon itself an immense amount of suffering. Good evening teachers and students I am here today with the aim of convincing you on why Wilfred Owens poetry must not be ignored but instead explored to find the deeper meaning of his poems. The poetry of Wilfred Owen was different to that of other war poets of his time as it revealed the horrors and agony of the so-called Great War which were concealed by the Church and British Authorities for the purpose of deceiving the youth. The idea of romanticising war goes strongly against Wilfred Owens moral purpose, thus his Poetry is didactic and condemnatory. Throughout his short life he had first hand experience with the scourge of war. From this he aimed to debunk those romanticised notions of the glorification of war that were present at the time by challenging poets such as John Keats who glorified war. Owen effectively conveys the truth of war through his use of techniques such as imagery, ambiguity and many others in his poems of "Dulce Et Decorum EST" and Anthem For doomed youth.