Wilfred Owen’s “Anthem for Doomed Youth” is essentially in the sonnet-form. The poem is a song eulogizing the youth emblematic of fresh spirit, fortitude and promises. In a way, ironically, it does point to the speaker himself who died at the early age of 25 (on 4 November 1918).

Owen was a young officer in the trench warfare of 1917-1918. He was shot a week before the end of the First World War as he led his men across the canal. The speaker asserts that “passing bells” could not hail or signal the death of these youth who died as ‘cattle’. The word ‘cattle’ utilized here is indeed significant. It is a common noun that does not attribute any sort of individuality to the youth as a whole. Furthermore, it is a collective noun indicating that none of the youth possessed an identity of his own. There were rather seen as animals, irrational creatures to be disregarded as they simply did not seem to exist. The youth are murdered just as cattle were mass-slaughtered.

What dominates the picture is the ‘monstrous’ sounds of guns. The adjective ‘monstrous’ alludes to the towering effect of the guns’ sounds and their dreadful attributes to the extent of paralyzing life.…