8th March 2018

Anthem for Doomed youth

Anthem for Doomed Youth-by Wilfred Owen

Task One:“These who die as cattle,”-soldiers could be seen by their superiors as expendable in numbers as they are compared with cattle.this makes the reader feel anger towards the superiors of the army because they do not respect the soldiers who fight for them.

“Rifles rapid rattle,”-this creates the image of the earth shaking due to the gun shots created by battle.

“From sad shires,”-this suggests that the superiors of the army don’t recognize that for each soldier that dies there is a family back home waiting in hope for their loved ones to return with little to no chance of their prayers being answered it seems as if the generals try to ignore this fact.

“Not in the hands of boys …holy glimmers of goodbyes”-this means that the candles will not be held by boys as they have died in battle but they will be seen in the eyes of their loved ones the candles are to remember the dead soldiers but instead of a little candle representing a life the lost life is represented by the look in the eyes of the families.

“bugles calling for them from sad shires,”this tell us of how the current generation feel remorse and thankfulness because of what the soldiers did and every year are reminded when the bugles are sounded.

These words and vocabulary help Owen to convey to the reader that the soldiers were ill treated and should have been rightly respected as the humans they are instead of expendable objects.

Task Two:

Simile”these who die as cattle,” this shows the way the were treated in the purest form as cattle are bought sold and killed in numbers and in this case so are the soldiers.

“choir of wailing shells,” this use of personification shows that shells which would cause death to the soldiers were also so singing like a choir which links to Owen as he would do the churches job in committing the funerals for his fallen men.

“hasty orisons,”this oxymoron creates a sense of trouble and anxiety as a prayer which would have usually had been taken time with is rushed maybe before a death or before rushing into conflict this also suggests that the soldiers had little backing from their side which Owen has already stated and that they had to take the matter of surviving into their own hands.

Task Three:

the positive ideas are strong in this poem however the negative ideas clearly over power

finish tonight.

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Writing