Wilfred Owen Dulce Et Dcorum Est

A sensitive and influential poem, "Anthem For Doomed Youth" captures the underlying true aspects of war. The first hand account written by Wilfred Owen is a powerful indictment of war, in which Owen uses codes and conventions to construct meaning. The poem is written in a form of a sonnet. The octave deals mainly with sound images and good depiction of atmosphere, whereas the sestet is more heart-felt, with visual images to convey the sorrow of death.
The title intoduces Owen's personal views about war. He establishes the seriousness and solemnity of his purpose by using the word "Anthem" which is an important sacred song. However, it has a touch of irony in it, as the word a"Anthem brings to mind a country's national anthem, which gives thoughts of hope and glory. There is no hope or glory in this poem. With the phrase "Doomed Youth" he believes the soldiers have no hope of survival, a whole generation are destined to die right from the outset. Owen explores the monstrosity of war in various examples of comparison, the first in the opening line. He questions of the reader, in order to make them think more about the poem, but, the questions are deliberately easy to answer, and perhaps rhetorical, as Owen goes on to answer them in graphic detail, just to drive home how obviously stupid the war actually was. This more subtly used technique does exactly the same job, offering the reader to step into his, or any other soldier's shoes, just for a moment, in order to encounter the tragedy that he encountered. The boys "die as cattle", they have been slaughtered mercilessly. The similie refers to the mass amount of deaths there was, and just like "cattle" it was a constant occurence. Notably, the way in which Owen compares the soldiers to animals is very effective making the reader believe was able to grieve properly over the innocent men. Line 2 consists of good personification used by Owen. "Monstrous anger of the guns" creates the image of the guns being completely