Suicide in the Trenches” starts off with the description of a young joyful boy as described as “Who grinned at life in empty joy.” Empty joy indicates that even when there was nothing to be happy about, the boy kept grinning. And a boy with no worries, “Slept soundly through the lonesome dark.” After this elated imagery, the poet switches to the trenches and describing him being as “Cowed and glum” and the imagery becomes heavy with depression. A clever use of the word “Crumps”, a onomatopoeic term describes the dropping of shells. Then comes the simple hard action performed by the boy. “He put a bullet through his brain.” This shocks the reader as he travelled from the elated imagery to depressing imagery to a sudden suicide you then feel the author’s accusing and sneering tone as he “attacks” the public and supporters of the war in contempt. Describing them as “Smug-faced” like self-satisfied people and telling them to “Sneak home and pray you’ll never know. The hell where youth and laughter go.” So they wouldn’t see the futile and the depth of the horror of war.
“Dulce Et Decorum Est” approaches the same problem in a more brutal way. Subjecting the reader to experience the slow suffering of the gas victim in the gripping and vivid imagery used by the poet, Wilfred Owen. The poem starts off describing the conditions of the tired and fatigued soldiers returning from the front line. Describing them as “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks” their bodily condition having reduced them to this state and goes onto to their physical condition such as “And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep.” This clever use of imagery effectively describes the sleep deprived state of the men as their resting point was still hours away and they walked on half-asleep and half-aware of their surroundings as sleep haunts them at every step. As the men trudge on, Owen also uses a fantastic use of a metaphorical phrase in which “Disappointed shells that dropped behind” also a use of personification treating the shells as being disappointed at the fact that they missed hitting the men and instead fell behind the men.
Then as the action moves onto a successful gas shell landing near the men and releasing gas as the men struggle to put on their gas masks, “An ecstasy of fumbling” but “But someone still was yelling out and stumbling and floundering like a man in fire or lime” As the gas claims a victim and the man falls prey as though he is being burnt alive. Then “As under a great sea, I saw him drowning.” This immediately puts the reader in the eyes of the author with the “I” being inserted and a metaphor which describes the man like a man drowning beneath the waves in the sea but in fact is drowning beneath the cloud mass of gas. Then the poem takes a twisting turn as it turns into the poets nightmare, “In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, he plunges at me” The nightmares and after-shocks of the horrific even the poet experience still resides and haunts the poet’s mind seems to grip the reader as well. Owen describes the dreams as “Smothering” like a suffocating nightmare that he can’t get out of. He also describes the careless manner in which the victim’s body is “flung” into the wagon as if he is already dead and is a wasted body but in truth nothing can save him now. But then the author gets to the compelling imagery describing the “white eyes writhing in his face” the whites of his eyes being the eyes having rolled back to the inside of the head and the word writhing being a expression to extreme torture or pain. He describes also the sound made by the “Froth-corrupted lungs” a “gargling” sound also a onomatopoeic word. A sort of half-strangled sound made by the victim as his organs start failing. Then Wilfred Owen like Siegfried Sassoon turns around to the public, the supporters of the war, telling them that “you would not tell with such high zest” meaning they would not go around with such enthusiasm telling tales of high glory in battles fought by heroes. With a emphasis on “Lie” with the use of the capital, he outlines that this big saying, “Dulce Et Decorum Est”, “it is fitting to die for your country” is now nothing more but a well-known lie. It is not part lie, part-truth but a factual lie.
Siegfried Sassoon’s poem follows the structure of rhyming couplets. The first two lines (couple) rhyming together. More importantly, four lined verses. It also uses monosyllabic words in all the rhyming words such as boy and joy or dark and lark. The first verse or stanza follows a happy, joyous tone but as the reader enters the second verse taking the reader to the front and takes on a more depressing tone. It describes the negatives of the trenches and the fierce conditions then as the sentences carry on with the use of commas end suddenly with a bullet point. “He put a bullet through his brain.” This gives the reader a pause in which to absorb this piece of sudden information and for the sudden impact to settle in. It’s like a simple fact of life being thrown at the reader unexpectedly. Suddenly it becomes more serious from the previous joyous tone. Switiching from the past tense, Sassoon moves into the present tense by turning around and in a angry and resentful tone, accusing the crowds of this situation of the trenches. It’s a accusatory tone and an almost “mocking” tone.
Wilfred Owens “Dulce Et Decorum Est” however makes use of the alternate rhyme scheme. It has a more complex structure than Sassoon’s simple one. His first verse starts of slow, describing the conditions and almost grittiness of war. Then as Verse 2 hits the pace becomes instantly faster as the action hits, “GAS!”, A urgent tone and fast-paced fumbling with the gas masks. After that the mood becomes one of suffering and describing the physical torture the gas causes the victim.
After reviewing and reading thoroughly both poems, I can conclude that Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce Et Decorum Est” is a more powerful poem than Siegfried Sassoon’s “Suicide in the trenches”. Both poets and poems show resentment towards the war which is clear and depict this in the almost graphical imagery of the suffering. However while Sassoon’s poem is shocking and is like a blow to the face, Owen’s makes you suffer with the victim. It creates a dreary atmosphere then adds to that by the sudden fall of the shell but it doesn’t stop there. The poet subjects the reader to go through all the powerful and vivid memories that he himself went through. Describing in detail, every suffering and piece of torture the victim goes through as he moves inches towards death. It has a harsh and unforgiving tone that does not let the reader go and seems to well up and capture you. After reading that, you feel yourself in the situation yourself. A truly horrific situation revisited in nightmares as it condemns war. This is the power of the poem that makes it so gripping over Sassoon’s more simple yet factual poem. Sassoon’s poem seems to get the bad bit over and done with where Owen’s “makes” you live through every second of it, the suffering and the death.
Arfan Rauf, S4 English, Mr Bowser