Anthem for doomed youth

Anthem for Doomed Youth, as the title suggests, is a poem about the waste of many young men in the
First World War. The word anthem in the title, unlike a national anthem that glorifies a country, is
ironical, for there is just the opposite of glory in the absurd death of younger people shooting each other
for nothing. The youth in the poem is doomed less by other (which the poem doesnt mention) than by
his own decision to join the battle. The poem reminds us of the sonnet that Mr. Brooke wrote to glorify
war and England in that jingoistic manner; Owen has used the same sonnet form (that was originally
used to express love) to demystify the conventional glorification of war, by exposing the meanness and
absurdity of dying in the battle. The poem is written in the form of a sonnet. The poem as a wholeis
about how to conduct the funeral of a certain (or any) soldier who has died in war.

The first eight line stanza (octet) describes how the guns and rifles, bursting bombs and the bugles will
take the place of church bells, choirs of religious hymns, prayers, voices of people mourning and wailing,
and the calling from the sad countryside. In the second six line stanza (sestet), he replaces more
conventional objects and activities in mourning and funeral by more abstract and symbolic things back
at home. The first stanza is full of images of war that will do the mourning, so that no human sympathy
and ritual is necessary, because this is not natural and meaningful death. The second stanza is more
devastating in its irony.

The octave begins with a rhetorical question. What passing-bells for these who died as cattle? The
soldiers die like cows; their death doesnt evoke much sorrow. The persona is not actually so apathetic;
the viewpoint is ironic that of the indiffere4nt people who stay in the protection of home and never
know that war is horrible and disgusting. The rhetorical assertion that no bells may be rung in the name
of these soldiers is not so much about the manner of their dying but the little value that the society
attaches to their death. So at the deeper level, the poem also reads like a direct invective scorn
expressed by someone exasperated by war and senseless killing of the young. If a man dies, the bell is
rung at the church but when the cattle die, we dont ring the bell in the church. When a soldier dies, in
situations like the World Wars, there is no much value attached to the death of mere soldiers.

By using the fixed form of the sonnet, Owen gains compression and a close interweaving of symbols. The
structure depends, not only on the sonnet form but also on a pattern of echoing sounds from the very
first line to the last, and upon Owens careful organization of groups of symbols and of two contrasting
themes in the octave the mockery of doomed youth, and in the sestet the silent personal grief which is
the acceptable response to immense tragedy. The symbols in the octave suggest cacophony and the
visual images in the sestet suggest silence. The poem is unified throughout by a complex pattern of

alliteration and assonance. Deposited its complex structure, this sonnet achieves an effect of impressive
simplicity in theme.

Irony is another important device in this poem. It is a terrible irony that men are dying as cattle. It is
ironical that sympathy seems to have dried up, and men are patient about the death of the thousands of
soldiers. Amidst these terrible ironies, the poet suggests ironically how we, as typical war lovers,
conduct the funeral. Since the soldier loves to glorify the gun, it is perhaps his wish that the beloved
guns sing the hymns after his death. The church is not as important as the bombs that will do the
prayers. The second stanza is even more devastating in its irony. The poet has replaced not only the
normal religious rituals; he has also supplied new materials for the funeral program. These metaphorical
symbolic materials like the sad voice, the mourning, the pale expressions, patient minds and brightness
of the eyes will no longer come to use, because they had been used to conduct the funeral of the soldier
the very day he had decided to leave normal life and chosen to go to the battlefield and die! When the
poet remembers today, he feels that the shining in the eyes or sad girls who said goodbye to the foolish
soldiers was the funeral candle for them that very day! This idea of leaving funeral is certainly
exaggerated, but it is also very true because the decision to go to kill your brothers is well high a
departure for death. So the poet says that the funeral in human terms had been done and therefore it is
no longer necessary now. Their death was a foregone conclusion, nothing shocking; that is why the
people are patient. What is left now is for the guns and bombs to perform (or celebrate) the funeral of
the soldiers who die as cattle.

The poem is remarkable for its sound symbolism. The sounds of the guns and rifles are echoed by the
words like monstrous, anger, stuttering, rifle, rapid, rattle, patter hasty orisons, demented, and the like,
all of which contain sounds like /r/ /d/ /t/, etc. The alliteration imitates the sound of the bullets blowing
in the battlefield. In the sestet there is no sound of war but a vast funeral service for the dead soldiers.
The poet asserts that there is no need for candles. The candles are replaced by the glimmering tears in
the eyes of beloveds. Their glimmering tears become the candles for the funeral services. The flowers
come from the tenderness of patient minds. A drawing of curtain symbolizes the darkness or the passing
of the sun. The sestet concerns with different insight. It pictures the melancholy state of the mind of the
beloved who thinks of her dead lover. She sees her fate caste with darkness.
Ambulances
It is partly this predictability about Larkin which makes him so good to study. Students can look for
patterns and recurring themes. Even classes that tell me they hate poetry can get involved with these
pieces. I have been gobsmacked at the responses from some unlikely students. One lad summed this up
for me when he said Its better than talking about ******* daffodils, this sir. Quite!

The title is clear here. Larkin will use this mode of transport to explain his philosophy of life. It will
literally be a vehicle for him to show us what being human is. A phrase that springs to mind as I read
this poem is If but for the grace of God, there go I.

Some people with a positive outlook on life might view ambulances as a sign of hope, a positive and
redeeming intervention which can sustain and prolong us rather than usher in death. Others see this
poem as a bleak reminder of our mortality. Death is out there. It is inevitable. It will arrive on
everybodys doorstep one day. It is simultaneously unpredictable and also predictable.

In the first stanza, we start with a dramatic, alliterative opener. The vehicles are Closed like
confessionals and are giving back none of the glances they absorb; like a corpse. There is something
both eerie and religious about this introduction to the topic. The last two lines are quite clear in their
universal message about the inevitability of death:

They come to rest at any kerb

All streets in time are visited

The second verse again contains some evocative alliteration and the stark contrast between the
animation and vibrancy of the children and women and the white face of the patient is clear. Objects
are stowed. This is a person being carried off like goods to be dealt with.

The third stanza, with its haunting use of sibilance rams home the point of Larkins bleak view of life:

the solving emptiness

That lies just under all we do

Note the rhetorical three part list: So permanent and blank and true

But it is the last few lines that really hurt:

Poor soul,
They whisper at their own distress;

As the ambulance gets ready to depart, the poet suggests that the onlookers expression of sympathy
and distress at the sick persons plight could also be an expression of our common vulnerability.

Here, the use of personal pronouns are worth contrasting with Next Please as they are they and
their, rather than we and our. This poem, though it suggests we are all equally vulnerable, is
slightly more distanced when we consider this subtle change of perspective in the use of personal
pronouns.

In stanza four, the atmosphere is bleak. Look closely at the lexis for clues. The air is deadened and the
next lines hint at loss and end. The word cohered brings in the opposite sense in stanza five with
the word loosen.

Things are falling apart and lifes ties and connection are beginning to fail. The patient is tellingly
Unreachable, or, in a medical sense unsavable:

The traffic parts to let go by

Brings closer what is left to come,
And dulls to distance all we are.

It is a very moving poem and perfectly fits with the sentiments in the previous one. We are all human.
We are destined to die.