anthem for doomed youth

• Themes of war

  • The waste of youth / sacrifice 
  • Futility of war
  • Order and obedience 
  • Hypocrisy or war
  • Death of the world/civilisation
  • Death and violence 
  • Brutality
  • Legacy and memorial 
• What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

        — Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

  sensory horror of combat,personification emphasises the madness of war,soldiers are cattle
• Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—

  The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

        And bugles calling for them from sad shires.


  hates the pageantry of war juxtaposes with the real experience of war  brutality,inadequate tributes to the horror of war
• where does owen write this

  Craiglockhart
• structure


  lots of end stops,shows difficulty of ending war
• not and no


  everything is inadequate to remember them by
• last stanza


  no honour or legacy in this volta,thinks he should be remembered through memories