Suicide in the Trenches - Siegfried Sassoon Context Flashcards
Outline the context of ‘Suicide in the Trenches’
• “Suicide in the Trenches,” by Siegfried Sassoon, is one of the many poems Sassoon composed in response to World War I o It reflects his own notable service in that especially bloody conflict. Sassoon was a brave and gallant upper-class officer who eventually opposed the war, but he never lost his admiration for the common soldiers who had to fight it o Sassoon felt contempt for the political leaders and civilian war hawks who, safe in their power and comfort, sent young men off to die in huge battles that seemed futile and pointless o By the point, Sassoon, although himself a soldier who had volunteered for service in 1914, had come out against the war. His younger brother had perished in the conflict in 1915 -- a great loss to Sassoon. Sassoon’s own poetry became darker and grimmer as the war progressed; he tried to convey realistically the lives, deaths, and sufferings of the soldiers caught up in the conflict. o He displayed great personal bravery in battle, and in fact his almost reckless fearlessness might itself be seen as a means of both defying and tempting death. Sassoon, in other words, may have been able to identify with the suicidal feelings that finally take the life of the soldier described in his poem. Eventually Sassoon openly attacked the war and defied his superiors. By the time he wrote “Suicide in the Trenches,” Sassoon had come to feel strong contempt for those whose only involvement in war involved applauding the troops who actually had to fight
Examine the structure of the poem
• Line 1 of the poem is as simple in style as it is in subject
o There is nothing complex about its diction (word choice) or its syntax (sentence structure)
o This is true, in fact, of the phrasing of the entire opening stanza, which constitutes one long but very straightforward sentence
o The opening stanza could almost be the opening sentence of a story for children: it is cheerful, pleasant, and appealing. For instance, the use of the word “boy,” rather than a reference to a “soldier,” helps make the youth sound particularly young and vulnerable; he is “simple” in several senses: he is innocent, naïve, and not especially sophisticated or well-educated
o His joy is “empty” (2) in the sense that it arises from no particular provocation, instead, he is by nature happy and optimistic, at peace with himself and at peace with the world
o He doesn’t try to hide his feelings: he “grin[s] at life” because he attributes his own good nature to life itself
o He sleeps soundly even “through the lonesome dark” (3), untroubled by worries, nightmares, or fears of any kind
o In every way, the boy seems at peace with himself and also in tune with nature (4).
• The shift from stanza one to stanza two would have been totally unexpected—and therefore all the more shocking—were it not for the extremely explicit title of the poem
o (One suspects that Wilfred Owen, a more talented war poet than Sassoon, would have given away much less information in the title if he had written on this subject and would have been far more subtle in general)
o In any case, the second stanza shifts from the springtime implied in stanza one to a contrasting emphasis on winter (5)
o The boy who had no cause for fear in the first stanza now seems “cowed,” and while in the first stanza he had “grinned” (2), now he is “glum” (5)—a word that sounds as depressing as its meaning
Explain Sassoon’s criticisms of society in the poem
• These are clear criticisms of earlier perspectives of the war. In criticising positive views of the war, Sassoon joins the ranks of :
o Owen - who famously directs Dulce et decorum est at Jessie pope
o A.E Mackintosh - who may also be seen as attacking pope, inverting her use of ‘Laddie’ (as seen in the call) e.g. he writes ‘ Lads. You’re wanted. Come and die.
o Vera Brittain - in ‘testament of youth’ makes a point of placing ‘show’ in inverted commas - she does this so much that it feels as if she’s expressing irritation at the presentation of war in such a way
