Futility By Wilfred Owen

Owen uses structure to present the loss of innocence of the soldiers in Anthem for Doomed Youth alongside Futility. The poem is presented in a Petrarchan sonnet form, which is ironic as their conventional functions are as love poems. However, it can be interpreted that this sonnet conveys strong emotions of fear and grief, reflecting the love and admiration he had for the soldiers lost. In the first eight lines (octet), the soldier asks a rhetorical question in the present tense. The imitation of 'patter out' and 'wailing shells' reflect the sounds on the field. Thus the focus is almost exclusively on the sounds and frantic pace of war that the young soldiers experienced. In contrast, in the last six lines (sestet), rhetorical questions are
The loss of innocence is reflected through the initial gentleness of the first stanza changing to a rising bitterness in the second. Particularly, in the first stanza, reflects the denial of the young soldiers in their belief in 'the kind old sun' to 'wake the seeds' and hard “clays of a cold stars”. It is this optimism that makes the journey of war bearable for the young soldiers: that like in the fields, if the time comes, 'the sun' would rouse them from slumber. In the second stanza, the tone becomes bitter. This is reflected the use of rhetorical questions consistently such as ‘Full nerved-still warm- too hard to stir? The rule of three reflects the bitter tone in which Owen is sarcastically criticising the lack of power such an omnipotent figure is supposed to bear. The sun has the ability to keep soldier live but fails to, so this explores the question of why be able to create life at all if it will not restore
He does not understand why life is created only to die and this frustration is evident through the consistent use of rhetorical questions such as ‘are limbs so dear achieved?’ It revolves around the viewpoint that everything is futile: war, God, even life itself. He does not understand why the soldiers are being mistreated. Owen expresses that the ‘hasty’ funerals are merely justifications of innocent deaths. It should not be deemed as an act of pride and selflessness especially when they shouldn't have had to die in the first place especially so young. They are brief remembrances that can never be mourned properly and are therefore not worth enlisting for as their death would have less of a