Analysis of “Glory of Women” by Siegfried Sassoon

Right from the analysis of the title the reader may expect the text aims at magnifying women. Indeed the word “glory” refers to something honorable, so it evokes the idea of celebration. In addition, interesting is to notice that the title does not refer to a specific woman but it seems to convey a message referring to women coming from all other the world.

Considering the structure, the reader is able to understand the poem is a sonnet since it is organized into two quatrains and two tercets.
Since the poem is a sonnet, the reader may expect the text to be a lyrical one that focuses on the poet’s private feelings and emotions. Therefore, the octave generally presents the poet’s problem while the sestet contains a possible solution.

Reading the poem the reader is able to understand that the speaking voice is a soldier or more than a soldier. Indeed the reader does not know exactly who is the speaking voice.

Considering the first quatrain the reader understands that women are presented through the soldier’s point of view. Indeed the first quatrain presents the way women appear from the soldier’s point of view. They are presented in a negative way since they seem to love soldiers only when they become the object of a mediatic prize. Indeed the soldier says: “You love us when we’re heroes, home on leave, or wounded in a mentionable place”. The use of the adjective “mentionable” makes the reader understand that women are not really interested in soldier’s conditions during the war because they are only interested in the soldier’s honor that seems to reflect women’s glory. It follows that if soldiers gain honor through the war experience, women love them because such aspect magnifies their importance.
Indeed the speaking voice goes on saying: “you worship decorations; you believe that chivalry redeems the war’s disgrace”. Again, the soldier conveys the idea that women are more interested in what makes a soldier famous rather than the hard life men have to face during the war.
It follows that on one side the reader perceives women as superficial people who do not understand what war is really like but on the other women are also presented as selfish since they aims at magnifying their appearances.

In the second quatrain the speaking voice goes into depth illustrating women’s contradictory behaviour towards soldiers. The contradiction is build up by the juxtapositions of different aspects in an ironical way. Indeed in each line the soldier associates a word with another one that denies the previous one. The couple of words are: delight - dirt and danger / crown - fight / morn or laurelled - killed. Women behave in a contradictory way because they magnifies their soldiers’ actions during the war but at the same time they cry when the soldiers die. Therefore they think about the war as a positive thing if it is useful to magnify the soldiers and themselves, while they condemn it if it is the reason of their soldiers’ death. The reason of such contradiction is due to the fact that women do not have experienced the war, therefore they do not know what really means taking part of the war.

The first tercet is functional to remark what the soldier has already illustrated about the women’s behaviour. In particular, the tercet focuses on the atrocities and horrors of war, which are ignored by women. Indeed they ignore the difficulties that their men have to experience during the war such as the horrible life in trenches and the fear of death.

The last tercet proves that the speaking voice is not referring to a specific kind of women but to all of them. Indeed, the soldier evokes an image of a “German mother” who is “knitting socks to send your son” while he is dead. Such statement makes the reader reflect about women’s ignorance and incompetence on the matter of war. Even mothers, not only lovers, totally ignore what the soldiers experience in the war. While women think about the soldier’s honorable aspects, they have to fight against death or they are already dead.

Therefore right from the analysis of the whole poem the reader is able to understand that even the choice of the sonnet is functional to play irony. Indeed the sonnet does not present something lyrical since it conveys the soldier’s negative idea of women.

Analysis of “They” by Siegfried Sassoon

Right from the analysis of the title the reader is curious to find out who the speaking voice is referring to. Indeed, the speaking voice may refer to the soldiers or somebody who is related to them.

Considering the structure the poem is organized into two stanzas: each one is made up by 7 lines.

Right from the first line the reader is able to understand that the speaking voice is a soldier thanks to the use of the possessive pronoun “us”. Indeed in the first stanza a bishop is talking to a group of soldiers about the war. In particular, he presents the war as a “just cause” since the soldiers fight against the enemies that are personified in the figure of the “Anti-Christ”.
In addition the bishop focuses on the fact that war brings many changed is people’s life, especially in the soldiers’ one. Indeed he seems to suggest that if soldiers kill the enemies, who are Anti-Christ, they will be in grace of God. Therefore right from the bishop’s point of view the war is perceived as a possible way to prove your faith towards God. It follows that the bishop connotes the changes that war brings in people’s lives in a positive way.

On the contrary, in the second stanza the speaking voice presents a “boy”’s point of view about what the bishop has just said. Right from the answer, the reader is able to understand that the boy is also a soldier who has experienced the war. Therefore the boy speaks right from his personal experience while the bishop advances spiritual arguments that are independent from the concrete experience of war.
The boy apparently agrees with the bishop’s speech: indeed he affirms that war has changed the soldier’s life but differently from the way the bishops has presented the matter. The boy overturns the situation making a list of the changes due to war: “For George lost both his legs; and Bill’s stone blind; Poor Jim’s shot through the lungs and like to die. And Bert’s gone syphilitic”. Therefore the boy seems to criticize the bishop’s speech because he exalts the war rather than condemn it. The boy’s speech highlights that there is nothing positive about the war; it brings only negative changes in people’s life. Indeed the changes are the diseases due to war conditions.

The bishop answers: “The ways of God are strange!”. Such statement reveals his disorientation in front of the evident horrors of war.