doomed youth
1. Is this an anti-war poem? Which do you think is more upsetting for our speaker: the fact that the soldiers are dying, or the ways in which the holy rituals of mourning civilians understand those deaths?
2. Why do you think this poem is a sonnet? Do the rhymes and rhythm affect the meaning of the poem in any way? Does the music of the poem have anything to do with the music of war—those bells and choirs of shells?
3. Where’s our speaker? And who is he? Why do you think our speaker has chosen to essentially leave himself out of the poem?
4. What do you make of the question-and-response format of this poem? Is it effective? And what do you make of that last image? Are these people drawing down their blinds to shut out the world’s phony rituals and mourn and suffer in their own private way? Or are they foolishly blocking out the horrors of war?
5. What do you make of the title? Is this poem itself an anthem? Does the poem approve of anthems for doomed youths in the first place? (Take a peek at “What’s Up With the Title?” for more.)
1. I think it is the holy rituals because people die everyday but the difference between a normal death and dying in this war is a normal person gets a funeral in a church where people celebrate there life and what they achieve and they sing anthems of joy, but a man who dyes in the war gets no joy around him there is only evil. No noise except for guns firing.
2. Owen writes this poem in sonnet form to give the poem more effect and to give the reader the atmosphere of the war. This atmosphere was very sad and down but fast moving pace.
3. Are speaker is in the war he isn’t at home and he is a soldier the speaker doesn’t speak about himself because he is alive and this poem is mostly about the people who died in the war.
4. Owen asks a rhetorical question before providing the answer. He allows the reader to reflect on the reality of how young men die at war and what sounds after their death is not bells,
2. Why do you think this poem is a sonnet? Do the rhymes and rhythm affect the meaning of the poem in any way? Does the music of the poem have anything to do with the music of war—those bells and choirs of shells?
3. Where’s our speaker? And who is he? Why do you think our speaker has chosen to essentially leave himself out of the poem?
4. What do you make of the question-and-response format of this poem? Is it effective? And what do you make of that last image? Are these people drawing down their blinds to shut out the world’s phony rituals and mourn and suffer in their own private way? Or are they foolishly blocking out the horrors of war?
5. What do you make of the title? Is this poem itself an anthem? Does the poem approve of anthems for doomed youths in the first place? (Take a peek at “What’s Up With the Title?” for more.)
1. I think it is the holy rituals because people die everyday but the difference between a normal death and dying in this war is a normal person gets a funeral in a church where people celebrate there life and what they achieve and they sing anthems of joy, but a man who dyes in the war gets no joy around him there is only evil. No noise except for guns firing.
2. Owen writes this poem in sonnet form to give the poem more effect and to give the reader the atmosphere of the war. This atmosphere was very sad and down but fast moving pace.
3. Are speaker is in the war he isn’t at home and he is a soldier the speaker doesn’t speak about himself because he is alive and this poem is mostly about the people who died in the war.
4. Owen asks a rhetorical question before providing the answer. He allows the reader to reflect on the reality of how young men die at war and what sounds after their death is not bells,