Analysis of Anthem for Doomed Youth

Analysis of “Anthem for Doomed Youth”

Most sonnets are about love but Wilfred Owen’s sonnet, “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, is somewhat different. It is honoring and remembering the soldiers who died. However, it is more or less criticizing those who did not think the young, lower ranking soldiers deserved a real funeral.

The very first line of the poem presents two symbols. The first is the “bell” or a “passing-bell” and the second is “cattle”. The bell could symbolize a couple of things. The bell is known as an object which tolls for the dead (recalling “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by John Donne). This “passing-bell” is referring to the deaths of the soldiers and it also foreshadows the suffering of the soldiers’ families. The bell might also represent a school bell which reminds us that many of the brave, dying soldiers are still children. Owen is comparing the cattle to the young

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soldiers. Cattle are slaughtered just as the soldiers are inhumanely and mindlessly slaughtered.

Imagery also exists in “Anthem for Doomed Youth”.