The use of rhetorical questioning is thought provoking in the last line when he asks: “What greater glory could a man desire?” The use of this sarcastic and ironic question makes the reader question whether or not dying for your country in such hellish conditions is in fact glorious or heroic. The soldier was given a poor and impersonal funeral service simultaneously with numerous other soldiers in the war and gives the impression that his effort wasn’t really appreciated or significant as he says: “‘In proud and glorious memory’ – that’s my due.” As if that simple line was all his ‘glorious’ death was worth. This question is very effective as it is the last line of the poem and also very thought provoking, leaving the reader questioning the glory always associated with dying for one’s country.
Likewise, Alfred Lord Tennyson’s ‘The Charge Of The Light Brigade’ is also a poem employing literary techniques but does so to create an epic drama. Firstly, in the first verse, tripling is used: “Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward”. This is effective as it make the poem rhyme better and flows smoother. Then, Tennyson depicts the battleground as the ‘Valley of Death’ meaning that most of the soldiers will inevitably die. This imagery is effective as it creates a film like image, which contributes to the ‘epic drama’ effect.
In the second line, after the command was given to charge forward, a rhetorical question is cleverly used and answered. The poet asks: “Was there a man dismay’d?” and answers: “Not tho’ the soldier knew some one had blunder’d”. Here, the poet is asking whether or not any soldiers had any doubts about being ordered into their deaths, and answers by saying that the soldiers wouldn’t dare question their superiors as they were too dutiful. This is very effective as it shows the soldiers as gullible, innocent and submissive, magnifying their heroism and patriotism. This is further magnified when the poet says: “Their’s not to make reply, Their’s not to reason why, Their’s but to do and die…” Here through repetition, the poet is showing that they had no choice and even if they did, they would still follow orders, as they were true patriots and had complete trust and faith in their officers, even if it meant laying their lives on the line.
In the third verse, personification is used in conjunction with metaphors describing the soldiers’ entry into the battleground: “Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell”. Giving these metaphors human characteristics as well as capitalizing their first letters, brings the battleground to life, creating emotive images in the mind of the reader. By using the ‘jaws’ and ‘mouth’ of Hell, Tennyson gives the impression that the soldiers are naively galloping into an abyss where they will be devoured. Specifically, he is saying they are killing themselves by following through with the order to charge yet again the suggestion is tempered by the dramatic imagery.
Finally, in the last verse, the tone with which he declares the soldiers’ glory and honour is purposefully over enthusiastic, creating a slight sense of sarcasm and irony and doubt as to whether their deaths were all in vain:
“When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d,
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!”
This reverse psychology approach is very effective as he gets the message across that the soldiers were noble and honourable, but at the same time questioning the high ranked decision to charge. The poem is very dramatic and epic, yet at the same time quite serious. Then in the last verse, the poet suddenly brightens up and enlivens the tone of the verse by using numerous exclamation marks and words like “O”, which make it sound like Tennyson is making an energetic speech. His subtle over-enthusiasm makes a great finish to the poem as it leaves the reader with images of heroic martyrs battling against all odds.
The attitudes of the two poets differ on the subject of war and the heroism affiliated with dying at war. Sassoon’s beliefs regarding whether or not dying for your country is glorious is that it is unacceptable, and not at all glorious. His graphic portrayal of the soldier’s death on the western front as he “fell into the bottomless mud” and “died in hell” doesn’t at all sound glorious but rather traumatic and disconcerting. On the other hand, Tennyson’s belief is that death is acceptable if it is in the name of glory and honour. He depicts the deaths of the soldiers in the poem as noble, describing them boldly battling against all odds even though they were outnumbered and armoured.
In ‘Memorial Tablet’, the squire is held to blame for the death of the soldier in the poem, and is depicted as cowardly and hypocritical as he pressured the soldier to go to war yet stayed at home. The soldier is bitter for this, which is evident in the line: “I suffered anguish that he’s [Squire] never guessed,” suggesting that Squire had no idea of the trauma the soldier faced at war. However, in Charge Of The Light Brigade, Tennyson doesn’t identify any authority figure as the cause of the soldiers’ deaths nor does he suggest in any way that they are to blame. This comes from the conservative principle that subordinates should, in a way, take the blame for mistakes made by their superiors.
The general attitude of Sassoon is that war is not glorious, honourable or heroic; rather that it just causes suffering and grief. The tone of ‘Memorial Tablet’ is one of sorrow, bitterness and questioning as to the glory of war. The attitude of Tennyson is subtler. Where he seems to be greatly pro-war and sees dying for his country the most glorious thing a man can do, the underlying tone is of irony and sarcasm, creating doubt in the readers’ minds and causing them to question the logic behind stating death is noble.
My opinion of war is that it should always, in any situation be used as a very last resort. Abusing power and military strength as numerous superpowers have done in the past, and are doing today, is unjust, especially when the country being persecuted is in a state of poverty and national despair. In the past, wars have been fought for no common, just reason, such as the Korean war, where the Americans and the Soviets were involving themselves on opposite sides of a war which shouldn’t have been fought in the first place, just so they could indirectly defeat one another and spread their own political beliefs. In my opinion, war should only be decided upon if two rules have been adhered to: only government states should be able to fight a war, which excludes terrorist organisations and political parties not in power, and that war can only be fought in the name of a just, common cause, voted for by members of international organisations such as the United Nations.
