Fiction Adaptation: Critcal analysis

Posted by : Unknown Tuesday, 28 October 2014

So that i could get a better understanding of anthem for doomed youth, i decided to do further research into an analysis breakdown to the poem, to see what i could appropriate from the research available, to build up my own understanding of the poem, and to see how i can take an Auteur approach at adapting this poem.

To help me with adapting this poem, and give me an idea as to what analysis i might need to pay particular attention too in appropriating certain elements from this poem, i referred to some techniques that i learnt recently from a book i read called Vincent Murphy, 2013. Page to Stage: The Craft of Adaptation. Edition. University of Michigan Press.

short phrase example summary of essential components

summary of key elements

Here's the research:

Anthem for Doomed Youth analysis from rgarofano

http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen2.html

This website is really helpful, it literally has a thorough analysis of the poem with additional useful information.

In A Nutshell

War is Hell.

Sure, that's a cliché courtesy of William Tecumseh Sherman, but it's also a reality that a lot of soldiers throughout history have lived through. And it's a reality that a lot of the general public is sheltered from. Back home, there's usually a whole bunch of pomp and circumstance in wartime. There are funerals and prayers, parades and flag waving. There's a lot of talk about patriotism and glory. But, it's often completely detached from what's actually going on where the fighting is. And where the fighting is, things are a lot less glamorous.

http://www.shmoop.com/anthem-for-doomed-youth/

This breakdown is just a literal analysis from the poem, and not my auteur adapted analysis.

Theme:

Vulnerability of the meek: weak minded as they’re being sent out to fight for a cause they’re not 100% sure about
Loneliness
Hierarchy in nature
Aimless acts of violence, slaughtering
Sadness
Out of site, out of mind.
Killed off like Cattle
War and sorrow

Language:
(http://analysisofcontrastingwarpoems.weebly.com/poetic-techniques-used-in-anthem-of-the-doomed-youth.html)
(http://knowledge4africa.com/english/poetry/anthem-for-doomed-youth-b.jsp)

Simile and rhetorical question

The poet Wilfred Owen uses a simile “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle” as a rhetorical question intended to create a image in the readers mind. This technique makes an image of soldiers running out of the trenches and being slaughtered by the enemy guns in the muddy battlefields of war just like when cattle go to the abattoir to be slaughtered for food. Including it as a rhetorical question makes the readers think about whether or not the soldiers got a funeral and what happened to them when they died. This is used to out line the point that the solders that had died did not get a funeral but instead laid there not at peace but with other soldier dyeing around them, guns firing over them and war and destruction continuing. These techniques are used to emphasis that war was just like a huge funeral where thousands of people died unrested on the battlefield. The poet tries to make the point that there was so much death that it over rides the point of the courageous and heroic acts that where committed during the war times.

Personification

Alliteration

The poet Wilfred Owen uses alliteration of “rifles rapid rattle” to create a rhythm and flow to the poem, it emphasizes the sound of a rapidly fired gun. The alliteration is highlighted by the use of an onomatopoeia; ‘rattle’. This flow and rhythm helps create a sad and angry mood for the reader, it expands upon the reader’s feelings of sorrow. The poet has also used alliteration in the last line “And each slow dusk the drawing down of blinds”. This is a reference to the soldiers that survived and the family left behind; those people who knew what happened and those who experienced it should not forget but move on from these deaths.

Personification
Owen uses personification in the poem “only the monstrous anger of the guns” with the intention of giving the guns human characteristics, the guns have no feelings and are the causes of all the death and the horrors that are involved with war. The poet uses this to represent the guns as the people who caused the war and the major officers that make the decisions of war, like sending hundreds soldiers to die “who die as cattle”. The poet also means that the “officers” where firing the weapons to achieve their orders at the risk of hundreds and thousands of young soldiers.

Onomatopeia

The words used in the poem such as:

Stuttering
Patter
Rapid rifles fire

These words represent the sound and feelings of the guns firing in quick succession, plus hitting the earth walls on the trenches, comparing it to the dull muttering of prayers.

Character

Relationship: There is no real character, this can apply to anyone whom partakes in the acceptability of an activity (Be it celebrating war ect). But rather, this is sort of observatory in the sense that the reader of the text is the character, as they're being introduced to the grim reality of what they think they know about but have no clue, and the text highlights this to the reader in an attempt to change their notion of what their preconceived belief was prior to the reading the this text.

Image: Dying people, Trenches, Muggy dirty dusty dull environment, fighting, corpses,

Storyline:

There is no set structured narrative in this poem, however, the overall storyline in a nutshell is that people are going out to war as cattle in a slaughter house, in effectively marching to their deaths.

Action:

People gallantly going out to war upright posture brimming with confidence, then coming back traumatised, 'shell shocked' arched back with the look of fear death and shock in their faces.

Conclusion

Theme of the poem:

My overall take on this poem is the notion of the soldiers being sent to death as cattle at a slaughter house, and because the soldiers are out of site to society, they’re also out of mind. With society being left to conjure up images inside of their heads from the censored/filtered information they’re given from news sources, not getting/appreciating the whole truth about the grim reality of war, and the hard work put in by the soldiers that goes unoticed!

Hopefully for my adaptation, i want to try and adapt the notion of the theme behind Anthem for Doomed Youth.