The Theme of War in "Channel Firing" and "Anthem for Doomed Youth"

Wilfred Owen wrote "Anthem for Doomed Youth" in the year 1917. According to Kenneth Simcox, the poem was written while Owen was in the hospital recovering from a war injury (Simcox). This poem is written in sonnet form, which is usually lighthearted; but this is actually a funeral song for the young men that lost their lives in war. The tone of the poem is sad, but also chaotic and then ends peacefully. The imagery used is mainly auditory. Owen uses the sounds of bells tolling, gunshots wailing and bugles playing to make the scene vivid for the reader. The imagery reflects the observation and knowledge he had from participating in the war. He observed his fellow soldiers dying around him and eventually lost his life in war as well. The main theme of the poem portrays the senselessness of war and the tragedy of so many young lives lost.

The poem "Channel Firing" was penned in 1914 by a poet named Thomas Hardy. This poem is also about World War I, but it portrays the tragedy of war in a different way than Owen's poem did. Hardy was never involved in the war, so it is not a first hand review of war, but rather his observations of it. He approaches war from speaking about the nature of humanity, and that we fight to make things better and they only end up worse. In the poem by Owen, we see a concentration on the loss of life, but this poem concentrates more on human nature and our ignorant fighting. In the end though, human nature leads to the war which ultimately leads to the loss of lives. Once one is dead, it is easy to see that war is not the answer to the world's problems. There has been war since the beginning of time, and still we continue to fight. The tone of this poem is also sad and somewhat chilling, but the use of irony and humor balances it out so it does not seem quite as gloomy. The imagery used in this poem is auditory and visual. The poem's images seem very real because of the use of sounds and descriptions of situations such as in the first stanza:

That night your great guns, unawares,

Shook all our coffins as we lay,

And broke the chancel window-squares,

We thought it was the Judgment Day (Hardy 773)

This makes the reader envision the sounds of guns shaking the ground and breaking the glass of the windows.

In "Anthem for Doomed Youth," the theme of the senselessness of young men dying in war is accurately portrayed in just a few short lines. An anthem is traditionally a happy song of praise or celebration, but this poem uses it in a sad context. The first lines speak of a battlefield "funeral" and the last part of the poem refers to the loved ones mourning at home. When one dies at home, they usually receive a "proper" burial, but on the battlefield it is not the same respectful ritual. The first line speaks of cattle being led to the slaughter, and this is portraying the young men being led to the battlefield. When they die, there are no bells tolling for them, only the sound of angry guns. There are no funeral prayers, just the rifles rapid firing. There are no mourners and no choirs, only the shrill sounds of gunfire and the sounds of the British bugles playing. After the description of the loud front lines, the tone of the poem switches to a gloomy, quiet place of mourning. There are no candles by coffins; the only light that shines is in the dying soldiers' eyes. The pall and flowers connect the reader to the image of one resting peacefully and makes one think somberly about the deaths. The last line speaks of the loved ones mourning, "And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds" (Owen 761). Owen very effectively draws the reader in using imagery and effectively makes his argument that war is senseless and unfair to the young people that lose their lives from it.

The poem "Channel Firing" is actually written in the plural first person. The speaker(s) is a buried person's skeleton and his church graveyard neighbors. The reader becomes aware of this in the second line of the poem. The setting of the poem is the church graveyard. The events that occur are naval guns firing on the English Channel, supposedly waking the skeletons from their place of rest. The poem creates a morose, chilling mood because of the setting and also the employment of words such as howl, worms and drearisome. The first two stanzas are comprised of the skeletons speaking of the situation, and then it moves on to God speaking to them. His words actually comprise four of the nine stanzas. He tells them that the noise they hear is just war and that the world has not changed since they were living, humanity is still as immoral as ever. Hardy's doubtful opinion of God is apparent when God says, "Ha ha. It will be warmer when / I blow the trumpet (if indeed / I ever do...)" (Hardy 773). The other viewpoint in this poem that leans toward Hardy's disbelief is that of Parson Thirdly who regrets dedicating his life to preaching, instead wishing that he had "stuck to pipes and beer" (Hardy 774). The last three stanzas are the skeletons speaking again. They lie back down and wonder if the world will ever be rational.

In comparing these two poems, one can easily see that war is the predominant theme. The senselessness of war and the nature of mankind that leads us to fight one another are the main points made. The way the authors portray these poems is quite different. In "Anthem for Doomed Youth," the reader is put in a solemn mood, but in "Channel Firing," the reader gets a gloomy mood, but is also humored by some of the images like the cow drooling and God laughing. Owen's poem is first hand experience and Hardy's poem is just observation. Any way it is depicted, the authors in these two poems are successful in showing the ignorance of war and how it never changes.

Simcox, Kenneth. "Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen." World War One Poets on the

Battlefield. 02 Nov 2008. http://www.1914-18.co.uk/owen/.

Owen, Wilfred. "Anthem for Doomed Youth." Literature: An Introduction to Reading and

Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. 8^th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson

Prentice Hall, 2007. 761

Hardy, Thomas. "Channel Firing." Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed.

Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. 8^th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice

Hall, 2007. 773-774.