Sassoon's poem begins with a rhetorical question which lends, not only a sarcastic tone to the poem, but also an argumentative proposal: If it does matter, then people must react to this poem and do something about the absurdity of war.
In the first stanza, with a subtle sarcasm, Sassoon asks if it makes a difference whether someone loses his legs if people will be kind if the soldier appears to not mind when others, alive with activity and hunger, "come in from hunting/To gobble their muffins and eggs." Will it bother the maimed soldier when he cannot be a man? is the subtly persuasive question.
The sarcasm becomes even more prominent in the second stanza as the poet asks if it matters if the soldier loses his eyes when "There is such splendid (ironic word) for the blind;/And people will always be kind (also ironic)." Then, the acridness of Sassoon's sarcasm becomes apparent as he creates the metaphor in which the maimed soldier is compared to having been reduced to plant-life:
As you sit on the terrace remembering/And turning your face to the light.
Continuing his verse, the poet pointedly asks,
Do they matter, those dreams in the pit?/You can drink and forget and be glad,/And people won't say that you're mad;
With the loss of part of his humanity, the soldier can no longer dream of the future. In despair, he will drink and lull himself into a state of nothingness, a state in which no one will accuse him of irrational anger towards war:
For they know that you've fought for your country/And no one will worry a bit
Of course, in these last two lines there is bitter irony as Sassoon poses the true irrationality: People believe that glorious war warrants any sacrifice. However, the poet's rhetorical question leads the reader to conclude that war is inglorious (THEME) and it is not worth the sacrifice of life or of one's essence. Man is meant for more that sitting and "turning ...to the light."
No comments:
Post a Comment