In this essay I will discuss defamiliarization in relation to Wifred Owen's poem “Anthem for Doomed Youth”. I will examine how his use of defamiliarization influences the reader's understanding of the poem. To defamiliarize means “to make (something) unfamiliar or strange” (Definition of Defamiliarize. www.oxforddictionaries.com. November 29, 2013). This involves making the words seem different to the reader as they have a hidden meaning, this makes it strange to the reader. It encourages the reader to think more about the text and delve into the depths of the unknown. According to Shklovsky (Lemon and Reis 3-25) the use of defamiliarization encourages perceptibility rather than automatization, normal ways of seeing the world are replaced with often shocking perceptions of reality. In Owen's poem we see the use of defamiliarization, the poem is about deadly war and makes us see all of this in a different perspective. In the opening line of the poem the soldiers are referred to as cattle, because when they die they do not receive bells for the church. By using this simile Owen makes us think of the soldiers as slaughtered cattle, something that is done day after day and usually without much compassion, he makes us perceive the soldiers as cattle sent to the slaughter when they go to war. This makes the idea of ​​soldiers going to war strange, it pushes us out of our comfort zone to really think about what soldiers go through when they die in war. Secondly, weapons are given destructive human qualities, not something that is banal. They are described as "monstrous", as they possess powers of superhuman strength. Owen compares church bells to the “rapid jingle of rifles,” which...... middle of paper ......as people do not want to take responsibility for what is happening in the war they want to remain indifferent and not be actors in making decisions about what will happen. This phrase could also refer to the pain that people feel because even behind closed doors a lot of pain is experienced. It makes the reader wonder what happens after the war ends, how do families continue after the death of a loved one? In this poem Owen uses defamiliarization to make the reader question the death of a soldier in war and how it compares to the death of a soldier in war. death of a person at home. Use comparisons, metaphors and similes to bring out defamiliarization. Works Cited Definition of defamiliarize. www.OxfordDictionary.com. nd Web. November 29, 2013Lemon, Lee T and Marion J Reis. Russian formalist criticism. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965. Print.