War Poem Comparison –

Fall In, Suicide In the Trenches and Who’s for the Game?

This essay will look at three poems from the period before and during the First World War, each giving different impressions it. Fall In by Harold Begbie, a journalist, author, poet and playwright, was written in September 1914 and it is pro-war propaganda written to persuade young men to enlist.

        Who’s for the Game? by Jessie Pope, a journalist and a poet, was written in1916 and is also pro-war propaganda. It displays the war as something that is enjoyable and harmless in order to encourage enlisters.

        Suicide in the Trenches, by Siegfried Sassoon, a soldier and poet, was written in 1918 and shows a contrasting picture, the grim and horrid truth about the war.

Fall In portrays the war as something that, while not “fun” or pleasant was still necessary. This is clearly seen in the quote “Right is smashed by Wrong”, as this shows that the war is about high morals and being correct.

        Who’s for the Game as it’s name implies, gives the impression that the war was a game for young men who were bored. It has references to sports all the way through it, for example “Who’ll toe the line for the signal to ‘Go!?’”

        Suicide in the Trenches contrasts both of these very strongly by depicting the war as neither necessary or fun, merely awful. It uses the quote “The hell where youth and laughter go” to really enforce this.

The subject of Fall In is that those who sign up are glorious heroes, while those who don’t will be ridiculed and reduced to being old men with their “old head bent and shamed”. This shows the belittlement and almost persecution of those who did not sign up at the time.

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        Who’s for the Game, on the other hand, focuses more on how much fun the war is going to be enjoyable, with quotes indicating it will be a breeze, such as “the red crashing game”. It does also add a sarcastic rhetorical question at the end of each stanza suggesting that there was another option for those who weren’t man enough to enlist.

        Suicide in the Trenches has a very clear message, the “hell” of war. In the last two stanzas, it shows the horror of the trenches, flying in the faces of the other two poems. It serves as a ...

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