The language used in Died Of Wounds has some similarities and differences from Suicide in the Trenches. On the last stanza, on the second line of Died of Wounds, the author describes the gunfire outside as if it is like hell, whereas in Suicide in the Trenches there are no similes. On the forth line of Died of Wounds the author says “He did the business well” where “business” is a metaphor, for it is the earnest of the wounded solider to draw attention to himself. Also on the last line of Died of Wounds the author describes dead soldier as a “slight wound” where he is comparing a dead solider to a small wound, and therefore it does not matter, and he is also comparing the country to a solider, which is hardly notices a slight wound. There is also some similarity in Suicide in the Trenches where Siegfried Sasson describes the trenches as if it is like hell meaning that war was like a place where young people went and got themselves killed. On the first line of Died of Wounds, Siegfried Sasson wrote “Wet White”, which is alliteration, which is a type of sound device. He also does this on the third line, ninth line and the last line. This makes the poem sound better. There is also some similarity in Suicide in the Trenches, where the author also uses this device to make the poem catchier but instead uses different letters to make it sound different and better. There is also another similarity in both poems where there are no assonances, which is the same as alliteration but it does not occur in consonants but in vowels. The tone in Died of Wounds differs. The first and the last stanza’s are both the same, which is sympathetic and pitiful and the middle stanza is about hallucinations whereas in Suicide in the Trenches, the first stanza is peaceful and quiet, the second stanza is sad and depressing and the last stanza is shocking and fuming. On the first line of Died of Wounds, it says “His Wet White face and miserable eyes”, which is imagery because it is giving us a picture of a patient who is in pain and agony and is close to death. ”The ward grew dark”, is also imagery because it is telling us something bad is going to happen. The whole of the second stanza and the next two lines are also imagery because it gives us the picture of hallucinations. In Suicide in the Trenches, on the ninth line, Siegfried Sasson describes the people outside who are cheering as evil people with deceptive eyes, which means that the crowds are trying to show they support the war but don’t.
The way both poem have been structured are nearly the same. In Died of Wounds the Rhyme scheme is AABB, CDDC, EEFF. Died of Wounds has got a few breaks in between like in the first stanza, on the first line, it has got nine syllables where the rest of the stanza has ten. In the second stanza, the first line and the last line have eleven syllables whereas the middle two have ten syllables. The first and the last line are couplets and the middle two are also couplets. The last stanza has ten syllables showing that there are no breaks in that stanza, making the poem mostly Iambic Pentameter. In Suicide in the Trenches it has got only one break on the second stanza, where there is only seven syllables whereas the rest of the poem has got eight syllables making it an Iambic Tetrameter. The rhyme scheme of Suicide in the Trenches is AABB, CCDD, EEFF. The first line, third line and the fifth line of Died of Wounds has enjambment where in Suicide in the Trenches has some similarity, where the enjambment is on the first, ninth and the eleventh line. Enjambment is when a line in a poem continues to the next line without any pause. Caesura on the other hand is the opposite of enjambment where there are pauses in between sentences. In Died of Wounds there is caesura on the lines: forth, fifth, eighth, ninth and the eleventh, whereas in Suicide in the Trenches there is only one pause, which is on the fifth line.
In this essay I have given the differences and the similarities of Died of Wounds and Suicide in the Trenches. Died of Wounds is mainly about the pains and the agony a dying soldier is going through whereas Suicide in the Trenches is mainly about a young lad who used to be a happy and cheerful but after he went to war, he lost his abilities to live any longer, so he killed himself.
