Anthem for Doomed Youth
What is the form of 'Anthem for Doomed Youth'
Petrarchan Sonnet
What technique is used in “Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots / Of gas-shells”?
Metaphor/ Imagery - soldiers are compared to drunk men, showing exhaustion; also hyperbole, emphasising their numbness to danger.
Identify the language technique in “the kind old sun”.
Double points: What effect does this create?
Personification - The sun is given human qualities (kind, old), suggesting comfort and life-giving warmth.
What technique is used in “Out there, we’ve walked quite friendly up to Death”?
Double points: What effect does this create?
Personification – Death is treated as a companion, making it strangely familiar rather than terrifying.
What is the effect of the metaphor “profound dull tunnel” at the start of the poem?
Suggests a descent into the underworld/Hell, establishing a dreamlike and sombre tone.
“The monstrous anger of the guns" is an example of what poetic device?
Personification
How does Owen use imagery in “As under a green sea, I saw him drowning”?
Vivid sensory imagery + motif conveys the soldier’s suffocation by gas, creating a nightmarish and claustrophobic effect.
How does the poem explore the theme of nature versus war?
Nature (the sun) usually gives life, but war has created death that even nature cannot undo.
Identify the technique in “We’ve sniffed the green thick odour of his breath”?
Double points: explain its effect
Sensory/ olfactory imagery evokes poison gas as Death’s breath, emphasising war’s horror while linking it directly to Death himself.
Identify the language technique of "strange friend".
Double points: Explain its significance
Oxymoron – it captures the paradox of recognising humanity in an enemy soldier, highlighting shared suffering.
What is the effect of the simile “die as cattle”?
It dehumanises the soldiers and emphasizes their slaughter.
How does the poem challenge patriotic ideals of war?
By ending with “The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori,” Owen denounces the notion that dying for one’s country is glorious.
Identify and explain the metaphor in “clays of a cold star.”
“Clays” metaphorically represent humanity being formed from earth; links to creation, but here highlights futility in human existence.
Identify the technique in the opening lines: "War's a joke for me and you,/ While we know such dreams are true./" - Siegfried Sassoon
Double points: Explain it's effect
Epigraph - To frame the poem as a continuation of Sassoon’s idea that war and death are deeply ironic, mocking the supposed “glory” of war.
How does the poem reflect Owen’s idea of the “pity of war”?
The dead soldier mourns lost potential — “the undone years, the hopelessness” — highlighting wasted lives and talents.
What two literary devices are used in the phrase “stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle”?
Alliteration and onomatopoeia.
What is the overall structure of the poem?
Double points: How does this add to the overall meaning of the poem?
Four irregular stanzas that move from the soldiers’ suffering march, to the gas attack, to the dying soldier, and finally to Owen’s moral message.
Why does Owen use short, broken questions in the final lines?
"Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?/ Was it for this the clay grew tall?/ —O what made fatuous sunbeams toil/ To break earth's sleep at all?"
To capture his grief and confusion; the fragmented questions mirror his inability to find meaning in war’s destruction.
How does the poem reflect soldiers’ attitude towards death?
They mock and accept death as an inevitable part of war, treating him as an “old chum.”
Define pararhyme.
Double points: How does Owen’s use of pararhyme "groined/ groaned" affect the tone of the poem?
A type of rhyme where the consonant sounds at the beginning and end of words are the same, but the vowel sounds inside them are different.
The half-rhymes create a sense of unease and incompleteness, mirroring the unfinished lives of the dead.
How does Owen contrast the battlefield with traditional religious funeral rituals?
Instead of prayers, bells, and choirs, the dead soldiers are “mourned” by guns, rifles, and shells, showing how war denies them dignity.
Why does Owen end with a direct address in "My friend, you would not tell with such high zest"?
It personalises the condemnation, compelling readers (and propagandists) to confront their role in spreading the “old Lie.”
How does Futility differ from Owen’s other war poems in its approach to death?
Unlike poems that focus on violent death (e.g., Dulce Et Decorum Est), Futility is quieter and contemplative, questioning the meaning of life itself rather than describing graphic suffering.
What theme is suggested by the line, “greater wars: when each proud fighter brags / He wars on Death, for lives; not men, for flags”?
The futility of fighting for nationalism; Owen suggests wars should be fought for survival, not patriotic symbols.
What structural shift occurs when the “other” begins to speak, and why is it significant?
The voice changes from the narrator to the dead enemy soldier, allowing war’s “truth untold” to be revealed directly.