Explain how particular features of at least two of Wilfred Owen's poems set for study interact to affect your response to them.

Wilfred Owen's war poems central features include the wastage involved with war, horrors of war and the physical effects of war. These features are seen in the poems "Dulce Et Decorum Est" and "Anthem for Doomed Youth" here Owen engages with the reader appealing to the readers empathy that is felt towards the soldier. These poems interact to explore the experiences of the soldiers on the battlefields including the realities of using gas as a weapon in war and help to highlight the incorrect glorification of war. This continuous interaction invites the reader to connect with the poems to develop a more thorough …show more content…

Owen's depictions of anguish and agony that shatter illusions that war is glorious. The sarcastic addresses of "my friend" challenge the reader question the wastage of war and its necessity.

The concept of waste of human life and carnage is present in Anthem for Doomed Youth. The first line "What passing bells for these who die as cattle" by using the word cattle suggests to the reader the soldiers are dying en masse and conjures up an image of the soldiers being like meat. The personification and onomatopoeia of the "monstrous anger of the guns" and the "stuttering rapid riffles rattle" revels the human emotion of anger and the intensity of these sounds described helps the reader to understand the sounds of the battlefield. The second quatrain of the octert uses the repetion of the words "no" and "nor" to reinforce what the soldiers are experiencing instead of the traditional religious rites and respects paid to those who have passed away. "No mockeries...no prayers now bells...nor any voice of mourning" expands the idea of what these soldiers do not have and recognises Owen's position in reference to the brutality of war with the reader feeling empathy towards these soldiers who deserve to be treated more fairly.

The many religous references in the poem such as "prayers", "orisons" and "bells" exposes the way soldiers will die and how it is inhumane and without peace or formality. The only choirs