Compare and Contrast Poems by Sassoon and by Owen, how they bring out their treatment of war.

There are many similarities between Sassoon and Owen as well as differences. When their paths crossed at Craiglockhart Hospital, where Owen was sent for shell shock, and Sassoon for punishment because of his open protest. Owen who presented some of his poems greeted Sassoon, because he was well known as an author and poet. Sassoon helped Owen write some poems but Owen kept his style of creating, what can only be described as, brilliant, truthful and vivid imagery. This was most evident in 'Dulce et Decorum est' when Sassoon helped Owen out. The similarities between them are that they both attack people who make war seem pleasant and fun, and some of the poems like 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' where Sassoon helped Owen with rhythm and structure of the poems.

If poems from Sassoon and Owen are compared, there are certain elements of their poems which have the same aim but do it in a different way: look at 'Does it Matter' and 'Disabled' and the two poets are trying to show the injuries suffered by soldiers and the way that they are victimised. Owen uses the sad tragedy of a young man with everything going for him loose all that he is: a fit footballer, a ladies man, independent, turned to "legless" and "in a wheeled chair", to highlight the horror of war. He seems to be showing that even the innocent can be attacked by the dreadfulness of battle. He is very sombre in this poem and finds word which will make a reader screw their face up in the thought of what he has written, "leap of purple spurted from his thigh". He enriches the poem with thick, sour and ghastly imagery, for example "He's lost his colour very far from here,

Poured it down shell holes till the veins ran dry"

Sassoon's approach to the same subject is coated with glossy sarcasm and heavy accusations towards his readers, making them feel guilty that people who get pushed out to fight without the slightest feeling that they might return with horrendous injuries. After all, "does it matter? - Losing your legs?...

For people will always be kind,"

Sassoon's main targets are his fellow officers who had this kind of disgusting attitude, which Siegfried hated. He said once that he particularly wanted to upset "blood-thirsty civilians and those who falsely glorified the war".

Other poems that they wrote also dealt with the same kind of subject. Owen once again writes passionately in 'Exposure' which is the poem that he uses most to show the conditions that soldiers had to go through, for example

"Pale flakes with fingering stealth come feeling for our

faces - " using the personal "we" to tell his reader that he has been there and seen this, he is not making it up.

Sassoon, on the other hand, uses the idea of an innocent, "simple soldier boy" very much like in 'Disabled' and takes him into the "winter trenches, cowed and glum" and shows as Owen does in 'Exposure' "the hell where youth and laughter go". This ending line is completely contradictory. Youth and laughter are good things which should be sent to heaven, but instead they are sent to hell, which can only happen in war. The poor boy who committed suicide "put a bullet through his brain" because of the constant "crumps and lice and lack of rum". It seems that he has gone mad.

I personally think that if I was an officer reading Sassoon's work, I would feel extremely guilty because I would probably be one of those who glorified war thinking that it didn't matter if people lost legs, because people will always be kind. But if I was a sixteen year old wanting to join the army to impress my girlfriend, and I read Owen's accounts of the trenches, I would most certainly reconsider joining up.