Dulce Et Decorum Est And Anthem For Doomed Youth Analysis Essay Example

be held to speed them all? ” asks us to consider the manner of the soldiers deaths and the farewell they receive.

Owen goes on to write “…in their eyes / Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes. ”, answering the previous question and showing that there are no candles on the battlefields, only the tears in the living soldiers’ eyes. The sad eyes are lit by the gunfire that caused their comrade’s death. The alliteration and assonance really makes the line more memorable. They also encourage us to think more deeply about the realities of death in a war, and sympathise with those fallen men (and/or their families? ) whose lives have been wasted.

It also conveys the universality of death, just as night follows day, so too do everyone’s lives end. However, Owen highlights the early nature of these deaths and how wasteful war is. He successfully persuades the reader that there are no positive aspects to war. Another of Owen’s war poems, ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’, has a similar message to ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’. Not only does Owen aim to convince the reader that war is wrong, but also to discourage future generations from going to war. Owen effectively changes the position of the reader to achieve his purpose.

The simile, “like old beggars” and “coughing like hags” help us imagine the physical effect war has on the soldiers. These proud, young men are reduced to insignificant, desperate old men, unrecognisable from who they once were. The simile makes the reader believe that war is immoral and devastating and the quality words used to describe war to those

who want to join the war are good reasons to why you should not join war. Owen also uses an extended metaphor in ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ of a candle flame dying.

It effectively compares the death of a soldier to a candle flame going out when Owen says that, “He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. ” Owen uses very vivid diction to describe the end of their life. It is very personal as Owen describes the dying soldier falling towards him. This line coupled with “Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light as under a green sea, I saw him drowning”, could also be viewed as an extended metaphor of a diving expedition that has gone wrong.

The soldier’s panic at being unable to breathe is clearly conveyed and it also appeals to our emotions. This is because breathing is an automatic reaction that we take for granted. All people can understand the soldier’s terror and sympathise the dreadful situation he is exposed to. ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ is a particularly successful poem at conveying Owen’s message that war is wasteful and wrong through appealing to both the readers thoughts and emotions.

In the two poems, ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ and Dulce Decorum Est, the poet Wilfred Owen’s main purpose was to expose the truth about war. Owen did this by using familiar imagery such as; similes, assonance and sound devices: onomatopoeia, alliteration. He also shows how badly the soldiers were treated on the battlefield and makes us express our grief at how lonely their senseless deaths were. These two ideas of the two poems, linked into his

main purpose of showing us that war was not a great, heroic thing, rather something that was immoral and devastating for many innocent lives.