Anthem For The Doomed Youth Analysis

Let's talk about Wilfred Owen's poem "Anthem for Doomed Youth.
"
Let's look a quick look the title. He calls his poem an anthem. We hear of things like
the national anthem, but what "anthem" really means is a song that commemorates
something or someone. This is a song for doomed youth. Why are these young people
doomed, you may ask?
Because they are soldiers going to war, and they're going to die. The whole poem is
about the soldiers who died in World War I, and it compares all the usual ceremonies
that people go through at funerals and so on in the civilian world to the inhumane kind
of death on the battlefield that he saw as a soldier in World War I. Wilfred Owen was
a soldier himself. In fact, he died in battle at age 25. He is writing from experience,
from the actual front lines, where he fought. And he is brutally honest about what he
sees there, and the horrors of war.
Let's look at the first few lines, shall we?

"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."
Okay, let's take this line by line. "What passing-bells..."

Okay passing bells are the bells that are rung in a church when someone dies. A
church normally will ring the bells, and that will let the whole town, village know
someone has died. So those are the passing-bells. He asks this question: What bells
will be ringing for these who die as cattle?
So instead of dying a dignified death like human beings, these men are being
slaughtered like cattle. So, he asks, what special bells are going to ring for these
youth who are dying. Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
So, the guns are going to be the only bells that we hear when these youth die.
Only the stuttering rifle's rapid rattle. Also, look at those cool sounds “rifle's rapid
rattle.” It makes the rifle's sound. “The stuttering rifle's rapid rattle."
It imitates the sound of gunfire right there in the language. Of course, the rifles are
stuttering, so it's as if the rifles are alive in a way. And it's the rifles that are going to
make the sound that commemorates the moment when someone dies, not a church
bell. And it says that those rifles will patter out their hasty orisons.
Orisons are prayers. So, the only prayers they're going to hear are the rifle-fire.
Alright, "No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; / Nor any voice of mourning
save the choirs, / The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; / And bugles calling
for them from sad shires."
Okay, let's go back. No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells.
He's saying there's not going to be bells and prayers. That would almost be a
mockery. That would make fun of their death. This death that they're experiencing is
nothing like those civilian deaths. This is a totally different thing. Nor any voice of
mourning. So, there's not going to be choir out there on the battlefield, and we're not
going to have these voices mourning the fallen dead person. Instead, we're going to
have the shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells. So, when shells (projectiles) drop,
they make a little whistling noise, and that is the only kind of choir that these men will
hear when they die.
And bugles, calling for them from sad shires. Now here we turn a little bit, because
we've been on the battlefield, with these shells and the rifles. Now we're going to hear
bugles that come from the sad shires. Shires are the villages, or the counties back in
England, where someone will sound a bugle. They call it the last post, and it's a
moment when they play the bugle for the soldier.
Now, we're halfway through.

"What candles may be held to speed them all? / Not in the hands of boys, but in their
eyes / Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes. / The pallor of girls' brows shall be
their pall;"
So, that group of four lines there, we go back to some of the church imagery. He talks
about candles. Are they going to have candles like a church funeral would have
candles and boys carrying candles? No, it's not going to be candles held to speed
them all to heaven. Instead, it's going to be in their eyes, a shine that says goodbye.
So, it's only the holy glimmer of goodbye in their eyes that is going to be a candle.
And then, the pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall?
The pallor, the complexion, the coloring of the girls is going to be pale.
They're going to be mourning and grieving, so the color won't be in their cheeks.
They won't be all rosy, they'll be all ashen, and that's going to be the pall, the coffin
cover, the piece of cloth that goes over the coffin. So instead of having a cloth over
the coffin, it'll just be the pale complexion of girls who cry and miss these soldiers, and
who grieve the soldiers. That will be their coffin cloth, because again, out on the
battlefield, there's not going to be all this ceremony of candles and the coffin and the
call, and all that. No, we'll just have their eyes, and we'll have the grieving of people
missing them.
The last two lines: "Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, / And each slow
dusk a drawing-down of blinds."
So, the flowers of the funeral are also not there, out on the battlefield. Instead, we just
have the tenderness of patient minds. That is the only kind of flower they're going to
have. And then the drawing down of blinds, normally in a civilian death you would
have the body, maybe in a home, and you would draw the blinds. So that means you
would close the curtain. So, the drawing down of blinds is another aspect of a civilian
death, but here he says they don't have blinds to draw. They don't have curtains to
close out on the battlefield, so it'll be dusk that will stand in for that. Each slow dusk
will be a drawing down of blinds. So, the sunset is the dusk that will be like the blinds
closing, the darkness falling. And it's a very peaceful end to the poem.
To end the poem is about ending and death, so the ending is actually quite, uh, kind of
somber and soft. We have this closure, drawing down of blinds.
Now I want to point out a couple technical things here. This is a sonnet.
That means we have rhyme, and we have rhythm that is deliberate here.
Wilfred Owen has put cattle and rattle rhyming, and then guns and orisons, and that's
just the first four lines. And he does a similar pattern in the next four.
And then he ends with two lines that rhyme with each other, minds and blinds.
That's called a couplet. So, we have three sets of four lines, and then that couplet,
and that gives us 14 lines.

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Let's talk about Wilfred Owen's poem "Anthem for Doomed Youth.

Let's look at the first few lines, shall we?

Okay, let's take this line by line. "What passing-bells..."

Now, we're halfway through.

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