Sassoon vs Brooke
During World War One, views on war were vastly different amongst the population. The soldiers on the front line saw the world through different eyes compared to the people at home. Some attitudes were based on experience and pain, whilst others on the idea of patriotism and blind belief. !
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They, by Siegried Sassoon, is a simple and direct poem decrying the righteous establishment sending men to die in a so-called noble cause. Sassoon's bitterness against the war is made clear through his poetry, which is filled with his resentment against war, the futility of it and the high price that had to be paid. Sassoon uses many different ways to convey his feelings, and particularly his bitterness and resentment towards the war and the officers, but his true meanings are clear and he writes in such a way that shows clearly what he thinks and feels about the war.!
The Bishop represents the pompous flag waiving establishment without a clue to the horrors of the battlefield. "They" are "the boys" at the front. The term "they will not be the same" is ironic and true.
There is the inference that the boys will transcend into some grace-like state for having fought and sacrificed "in a just cause." Sassoon knew the boys, those who survived, who would return home changed for far darker and haunting reasons. The elites running the war thought nothing of sending troops to their deaths back and forth. The sentiment sold to the populace back home was that it was the "just cause" and it was a noble thing to "have challenged death" resulting in "new right to breed an honorable race.”!
The second stanza however is Sassoon's blunt and harsh retort of reality. It is a brief roll call of injury and disease. Syphilis ran rampant among the boys engaging random relationships and
Sassoon employs this as illustration in mocking the Bishop as the disease is hardly a righteous or noble means of death. The voices against the war cry out “You'll not find a chap who's served that
!
They, by Siegried Sassoon, is a simple and direct poem decrying the righteous establishment sending men to die in a so-called noble cause. Sassoon's bitterness against the war is made clear through his poetry, which is filled with his resentment against war, the futility of it and the high price that had to be paid. Sassoon uses many different ways to convey his feelings, and particularly his bitterness and resentment towards the war and the officers, but his true meanings are clear and he writes in such a way that shows clearly what he thinks and feels about the war.!
The Bishop represents the pompous flag waiving establishment without a clue to the horrors of the battlefield. "They" are "the boys" at the front. The term "they will not be the same" is ironic and true.
There is the inference that the boys will transcend into some grace-like state for having fought and sacrificed "in a just cause." Sassoon knew the boys, those who survived, who would return home changed for far darker and haunting reasons. The elites running the war thought nothing of sending troops to their deaths back and forth. The sentiment sold to the populace back home was that it was the "just cause" and it was a noble thing to "have challenged death" resulting in "new right to breed an honorable race.”!
The second stanza however is Sassoon's blunt and harsh retort of reality. It is a brief roll call of injury and disease. Syphilis ran rampant among the boys engaging random relationships and
Sassoon employs this as illustration in mocking the Bishop as the disease is hardly a righteous or noble means of death. The voices against the war cry out “You'll not find a chap who's served that