William Butler Yeats & Siegfried Sassoon on War and Sacrifice
By Peter Doran
The dawn of the 20th century marked the beginning of a culture of death. World War I was a war that had never been fought before and society did not know how to interpret its carnage. Because of technological advances, individuals now had a capacity for destruction they were not yet ready for. The introduction of trench warfare, grenades, machine guns, poisonous gasses, and flamethrowers was a far cry from the traditional rifle and bayonet men were initially trained with (“Weapons of War”). Due to the drawn-out and horrific bloodshed, a sense of instability and fragmentation grew within society which marked the collapse of civilization (1044). For these reasons, poets such as William Butler Yeats and Siegfried Sassoon felt a duty to bring the consternations of war to their readers. The devastating ramifications of war are taken up in Yeats’s Easter 1916 and Sassoon’s Memoirs of an Infantry Soldier. Although Yeats and Sassoon shared a common vision of bringing the realities of war to their audience, they diverge from one another on the meaning of sacrifice due to their differing cultural identities and participation in the war. Nevertheless, embracing modernist conventions, Yeats and Sassoon are able to illustrate their apprehensions on the accomplishments of war and sacrifice through their use of graphic imagery, surrealism, and by employing a stream of consciousness.
The works of Yeats and Sassoon were heavily influenced by the aesthetic movement of modernism which came with the onset of World War I. Adhering to romantic ideals, modernism placed a heavy emphasis on subjective experiences and humans perceiving themselves as individuals. For these reasons, coming to one’s sense of self within the bleakness of war was a common theme throughout modernist literature. The emphasis of subjective experiences and coming to terms with one’s self is seen in the first stanza of Yeats’s Easter 1916. The opening of the poem features Yeats on an average day in the city of Dublin, Ireland. He is walking casually throughout the city amongst the common folk who work, “From counter or desk among grey” (Yeats line 3). Yeats goes on to say that, “I have passed with a nod of the head / Or polite meaningless words, / Or have lingered awhile and said / Polite meaningless words,” (Yeats lines 5-8). Here, it is evident that Yeats doesn’t care too much for conversation with the commoners of Dublin because he is focused more on what is going on within himself. As a result, his interactions with the common folk are only limited to superficial actions such as the “nod of a head.” What is prominent here, however, is the repetition of “polite meaningless words.” By repeating this line twice, Yeats places an emphasis on how he spends his days being introspective. Because his interactions with these people are cyclical and trivial, Yeats focuses more of his energy on making sense of the world around him. Conforming to modernist conventions, the opening stanza of Easter 1916 creates a tone of subjectivity that Yeats then employs throughout the poem in order to wrestle with his uncertainties over rebellion and sacrifice.
During the 1900s, individuals viewed themselves as empowered with the capability of change which carried over to Ireland’s disdain for British rule. In fact, the individual was so powerful that people, “believed that the actions and the goodwill of individual human beings could ameliorate social problems” (1048). This contrasted largely with the Marxist view at the time that, “individuals are typically caught in a web of large social and economic forces over which they have no control” (1048). Although Ireland was under oppression by British authority at the time, individuals remained hopeful in the struggle for Irish independence. Leaders of rebellion were viewed as capable of alleviating Ireland from British rule and were seen as heroes and martyrs for that reason. Indeed, the Irish identity was so strong that active participant in the 1916 uprising, Pádraic Pearse, declared, “To refuse to fight would have been to lose, to fight is to win; we have kept faith with the past, and handed on a tradition to the future” (Pearse). Evidently, Pearse believed that it was an honor to die for one’s country regardless of the outcome. This viewpoint was largely held by Irish nationalists and was used to inspire people to rebel. Undoubtedly, self-sacrifice was an integral part of the Irish identity, but it was something that Yeats struggled with in Easter 1916.
Yeats grapples with the significance of sacrifice when he begins to talk about figures who played a central role in the uprising. He starts by speaking about Countess Markiewicz, née Constance Gore-Booth who was arrested and sentenced to death due to her part in the rebellion (1172). He says that her “days were spent / In ignorant good-will,” and that “her voice grew shrill” due to her nightly political debates with fellow Irish nationalists (Yeats lines 18 & 20). Contrary to popular belief, it appears as though Yeats believed that participation in the uprising had adverse effects. More specifically, Yeats debated whether or not women should be involved in the rebellion at all. This is seen when he describes her sacrifice for the rebellion as having good-will but ultimately being ignorant. When put together, the seemingly contradictory words make Gore-Booth’s actions out to be pointless and juvenile. Yeats emphasizes this point even further when he says, “What voice more sweet than hers” grew to be shrill because of her participation in the rebellion (Yeats lines 20-21). In the eyes of Yeats, Gore-Booth’s involvement in the uprising ridded her of her femininity. Here, Yeats is not complimenting Gore-Booth as a hero but rather is criticizing her involvement which would have been a surprise to the Irish nationalists at the time. This tone of criticism towards self-sacrifice continues as Yeats describes his fellow poet, Thomas MacDonagh.
In describing MacDonagh, Yeats writes that he “Was coming into his force; / He might have won fame in the end, / So sensitive his nature seemed, / So daring and sweet his thought (Yeats lines 27-30). Unlike Gore-Booth, Yeats holds MacDonagh in higher regards by not describing the effects the rebellion had upon his masculinity. Instead, he talks about how MacDonagh was getting good at poetry and how he could have become popular just like Yeats. This point is accentuated when Yeats utilizes a semi-colon after “force”. The use of a semi-colon creates a rift within the poem causing the reader to feel pity towards MacDonagh. Furthermore, instead of describing his rebellious efforts as ignorant with good-will, Yeats portrays MacDonagh as sensitive, daring, and sweet. For these reasons, MacDonagh should not have been involved in the uprising because his talents were more conducive to the world of poetry instead of politics. Even though Yeats gives MacDonagh a lot of praise because of his poetic abilities, Yeats still seems to be apprehensive about the popular belief of dying for one’s country. Because of the rebellion, the world will never know what MacDonagh was capable of. However, Yeats’s pessimistic attitude starts to change when he describes his adversary, Major John MacBride.
Major John MacBride was perceived as Yeats’s foe due to his short marriage with Maude Gonne, a woman whom Yeats was obsessed with (1169). Energetically, Yeats describes him as “A drunken, vainglorious lout” (Yeats line 32). By introducing MacBride in this fashion, the reader’s initial reaction towards MacBride is one of apathy. In the reader’s mind, it would be hard to want to give praise to an arrogant alcoholic. Furthermore, Yeats says, “He had done most bitter wrong / To some who are near my heart,” (Yeats lines 33-34). Here, Yeats is referring to MacBride and how he hurt his beloved Maude Gonne because of the divorce (1172). By alluding to the bitterness Yeats felt for MacBride, he makes the poem very personal for his readers. In this way, the audience is able to catch a glimpse of the inner turmoil that Yeats has been going through. Unlike Gore-Booth and MacDonagh, MacBride is the only person Yeats does not give any compliment of character to. Surprisingly, however, Yeats goes on to say, “Yet I number him in the song;” and that “He, too, has been changed in his turn,” (Yeats lines 35 & 38). Through these words, Yeats contradicts his previous views on the futility of Gore-Booth and MacDonagh’s sacrifice. By numbering his adversary in Easter 1916, Yeats pays tribute to all men and women who gave up their lives for Ireland’s sake. Even though Yeats disliked MacBride, he notes how his sacrifice altered how people will remember him – not as a drunk but as a hero. This powerfully depicts how even though Yeats was frustrated with the tactics of the Irish nationalists, he still regarded people who gave up their lives as heroes and martyrs.
Although Yeats saw the terrible beauty within sacrifice, Siegfried Sassoon held a different vision due to his British heritage and active participation in the war. Furthermore, along with the ruptures that came with the physical aspects of World War I, early twentieth century physicists, psychoanalysts, and philosophers contributed to a growing sense of instability seen throughout Sassoon’s work. Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity and “A New Determination of Molecular Dimension” rendered perceptions of time and light to be less stable than previously thought (1048-1049). Work done by analytic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein contributed to “the effect of destabilizing what had been thought of as largely fixed relationships between words and meanings” (1049). These findings positioned individuals on a constant search for meaning and making sense of things which often lead to feelings of instability, fragmentation, and uncertainty. These feelings are commonly portrayed in modernist literature through what is known as a stream of consciousness, or the fluidity of thought hallmarked by American William James (1049). With this style of thought, character development within stories was achieved through personal thought rather than action. Stream of consciousness was a style of writing favored by Sassoon and is sprinkled throughout his Memoirs of an Infantry Soldier as he deals with the meaning of sacrifice due to war.
Siegfried Sassoon’s views on the significance of sacrifice differ from Yeats’s due in part to the intellectuals of his day but also because of his participation in the British side of the war. Because he was an active participant in the Battle of the Somme, Sassoon experienced the atrocities of war first-hand (1138). During the Battle of Somme, Sassoon was “deafened and stupefied” by constant bombardments (Sassoon). This commonly had an effect of what is known as shell shock which was a condition that people knew very little about because of its multiple manifestations (“Shell Shock”). The most common effect, however, according to Clifford Lane was “people being dazed, lying on a firestep you know after a bombardment, dazed, that was quite the common” (“Shell Shock”). This detachment from reality or being dazed was experienced by Sassoon and is present at the beginning of his Memoirs of and Infantry Officer. While Sassoon is being bombarded during his routinely breakfast, he sticks to his stream of consciousness and replays in his mind a MacNiven and Cameron slogan for pens: “They come as a boon and a blessing to men, / The Something, the Owl, and the Waverly Pen” (Sassoon). Because Sassoon has become accustomed to the sound of crashing bombs, his mind tends to wander. Instead of worrying about the artillery, Sassoon contrasts the dangers around him with a trivial pen advertisement. Because Sassoon speaks from a stream of consciousness, he is able to create a bewildering tone that sets up the rest of his memoir and views on sacrifice.
Due to the graphic experiences that Sassoon had during the Battle of Somme, he sees sacrifice in war as futile. This is apparent when Sassoon describes a man named Jenkins and how “His haggard blinking face haunts [his] memory” (Sassoon). Unlike Yeats, Sassoon only focuses on the physical aspects that had an effect upon the soldiers. To Sassoon, Jenkins “was an example of the paralyzing effect which such an experience cold produce on a nervous system sensitive to noise” (Sassoon). Instead of holding Jenkins up on a pedestal for serving his country, Sassoon only focuses on Jenkin’s shell-shocked face and how it had an effect upon him. Sassoon doesn’t remember Jenkins as a hero but instead only uses him as an example to show the horrors of war to his audience.
Sassoon continues to express his view of sacrifice when he compares a skirmish between his men and some Germans to a “football match.” Right before Sassoon describes the brawl, he draws upon a modernist technique known as surrealism. Setting up the scene for his readers, Sassoon writes, “Brilliant sunshine and a haze of smoke drifting along the landscape.” (Sassoon). By juxtaposing sunshine with a haze of smoke, Sassoon creates an atmosphere of strangeness. This atmosphere of strangeness then permeates the scene where, “Some Yorkshires a little way below on the left, watching the show and cheering as if at a football match” (Sassoon). Here, the futility of war and sacrifice is so apparent that Sassoon compares it to a show or football match. By comparing war to a football match, Sassoon is able to show his readers how trivial war actually is. Instead of relying upon graphic imagery to convince his readers, Sassoon is able to do so by comparing it to a petty sport such as football.
The uselessness of war and sacrifice to Sassoon can also be attributed to his experience with the introduction of trench warfare. Those who fought in trenches often experienced trench foot due to the damp conditions and often contracted fevers and diseases such as malaria (Mason). It is projected that over 6 million British soldiers experienced some sort of sickness which had a large effect upon morale (Mason). A lack of morale is apparent when Sassoon writes, “Figures filing down the trench. Two of them have gone out to look at our wire gaps! Have just eaten my last orange… I am staring at a sunlit picture of Hell…” (Sassoon). Sassoon depicts his low morale and creates a feeling of otherness when he describes the men fighting in the trench as “figures.” Instead of describing them as human, Sassoon shows how war belittled these men to a statistic. Instead of describing their acts of bravery, Sassoon portrays how their acts were meaningless by again utilizing surrealism. By contrasting the pleasure of his orange with the misery of war, Sassoon constructs an eerie scene that would have nauseated his audience. By juxtaposing war with an orange, Sassoon is able to show that these men are not fighting for anything but their own death.
Furthermore, Sassoon portrays the fruitlessness of sacrifice in war when he describes a dead German soldier that a gunner came across in the trench of Fricourt. From his dialogue with the gunner Sassoon writes, “Said Fricourt is full of dead; he saw one officer lying across a smashed machine-gun with his head bashed in – ‘a fine looking chap,’ – he said, with some emotion, which rather surprised me (Sassoon). Through graphic imagery, Sassoon is able to evoke disgust within his readers. The imagery of a man with his head bashed in would have been too much to stomach. What is peculiar however is that the gunner describes the dead German soldier as “a fine looking chap” which brought out some emotion within him. This would have been a surprise to Sassoon’s readers because why would a British soldier feel empathy for the enemy? By including this in his memoir, Sassoon is able to show that not only did the British die for nothing but so did their enemies. By complimenting the German soldier and emphasizing it with the use of dashes, Sassoon’s audience would have been left in a state of confusion and left to wonder what war is really good for.
Sassoon consolidates all of his uncertainties on the meaning of sacrifice and war in describing the aftermath at Fricourt. After the epic battle, Sassoon has a “Queer feeling, seeing people moving about freely between here and Fricourt” (Sassoon). Even though a gruesome battle had just taken place with unthinkable amounts of bloodshed, the British soldiers go on with their lives as if nothing happened. The soldiers have become so dehumanized that they do not even realize what is going on around them much like when Sassoon was distracted with the pen slogan. Sassoon concludes his thoughts on the war by conceding, “Feel a bit of a fraud” (Sassoon). By saying he feels like a fraud, Sassoon is questioning his own participation in the war. By participating in the war, Sassoon is contributing to the 19,000 casualties that the Battle of Somme produced (1138). Through an act of concession, Sassoon is able to portray to his audience that the war was not worth fighting. Even though Sassoon was awarded with a Military Cross due to his bravery, he threw it away because the war accomplished nothing – it did not even create heroes or martyrs out of people (1138).
Because of the brutality and mass casualties that arose out of the 1916 rebellion and World War I, Yeats and Sassoon felt a duty to bring the experience of war and all of its perplexities to their readers. Due to the horrific carnage because of new and unknown technologies, people of the early twentieth century had a hard time coming to terms of one’s self within the bleakness of war. On a similar front, both Yeats and Sassoon abhorred bloody combat in order to tackle social problems. They held true to the belief that “the actions and the goodwill of individual human beings could ameliorate social problems” but warfare was not the correct action to take. Even though Yeats and Sassoon shared a common vision in bringing the realities of war to their readers while adhering to modernist conventions, they differed on the significance of sacrificing oneself for their country. Because of Yeats’s Irish pride, even though he wavered in his thought, he considered those who died on Easter Monday as heroes and martyrs. Due to Sassoon’s enlistment in the British army, through the bleakness of war he came to see that there was no pride in dying for one’s country. In the end, even though Yeats and Sassoon cannot agree upon the significance behind dying for one’s country, they can agree upon one thing – the futility of war.
Works Cited
Mason, Amanda. How to Keep Clean and Healthy in the Trenches, Imperial War Museum, 11
January 2018, https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/how-to-keep-clean-and-healthy-in-the-trenches
Pearse, Pádraic. Statement (1916), The Broadview Anthology of British Literature Online
Resource Site, https://sites.broadviewpress.com/bablonline/wp-content/uploads/sites/27/2012/05/Concise-B-Web-Yeats-Struggle-for-Irish-Independence.pdf
Sassoon, Siegfried. Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (1930), The Broadview Anthology of British
Literature: Concise Edition, Broadview Press 2013.
“Shell Shock.” Voices of the First World War, Imperial War Museum, 6 June 2018,
https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/voices-of-the-first-world-war-shell-shock
“The Early Twentieth Century: From 1900 to Mid-Century.” The Broadview Anthology of
British Literature, by Joseph Black, Broadview Press, 2013, pp. 1040–1170.
"Weapons of War." Voices of the First World War, episode 39, Imperial War Museum, 6 June
2018, https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/voices-of-the-first-world-war-weapons-of-war
Yeats, William Butler. Easter 1916 (1916), The Broadview Anthology of British Literature:
Concise Edition, Broadview Press 2013.
By Peter Doran
The dawn of the 20th century marked the beginning of a culture of death. World War I was a war that had never been fought before and society did not know how to interpret its carnage. Because of technological advances, individuals now had a capacity for destruction they were not yet ready for. The introduction of trench warfare, grenades, machine guns, poisonous gasses, and flamethrowers was a far cry from the traditional rifle and bayonet men were initially trained with (“Weapons of War”). Due to the drawn-out and horrific bloodshed, a sense of instability and fragmentation grew within society which marked the collapse of civilization (1044). For these reasons, poets such as William Butler Yeats and Siegfried Sassoon felt a duty to bring the consternations of war to their readers. The devastating ramifications of war are taken up in Yeats’s Easter 1916 and Sassoon’s Memoirs of an Infantry Soldier. Although Yeats and Sassoon shared a common vision of bringing the realities of war to their audience, they diverge from one another on the meaning of sacrifice due to their differing cultural identities and participation in the war. Nevertheless, embracing modernist conventions, Yeats and Sassoon are able to illustrate their apprehensions on the accomplishments of war and sacrifice through their use of graphic imagery, surrealism, and by employing a stream of consciousness.
The works of Yeats and Sassoon were heavily influenced by the aesthetic movement of modernism which came with the onset of World War I. Adhering to romantic ideals, modernism placed a heavy emphasis on subjective experiences and humans perceiving themselves as individuals. For these reasons, coming to one’s sense of self within the bleakness of war was a common theme throughout modernist literature. The emphasis of subjective experiences and coming to terms with one’s self is seen in the first stanza of Yeats’s Easter 1916. The opening of the poem features Yeats on an average day in the city of Dublin, Ireland. He is walking casually throughout the city amongst the common folk who work, “From counter or desk among grey” (Yeats line 3). Yeats goes on to say that, “I have passed with a nod of the head / Or polite meaningless words, / Or have lingered awhile and said / Polite meaningless words,” (Yeats lines 5-8). Here, it is evident that Yeats doesn’t care too much for conversation with the commoners of Dublin because he is focused more on what is going on within himself. As a result, his interactions with the common folk are only limited to superficial actions such as the “nod of a head.” What is prominent here, however, is the repetition of “polite meaningless words.” By repeating this line twice, Yeats places an emphasis on how he spends his days being introspective. Because his interactions with these people are cyclical and trivial, Yeats focuses more of his energy on making sense of the world around him. Conforming to modernist conventions, the opening stanza of Easter 1916 creates a tone of subjectivity that Yeats then employs throughout the poem in order to wrestle with his uncertainties over rebellion and sacrifice.
During the 1900s, individuals viewed themselves as empowered with the capability of change which carried over to Ireland’s disdain for British rule. In fact, the individual was so powerful that people, “believed that the actions and the goodwill of individual human beings could ameliorate social problems” (1048). This contrasted largely with the Marxist view at the time that, “individuals are typically caught in a web of large social and economic forces over which they have no control” (1048). Although Ireland was under oppression by British authority at the time, individuals remained hopeful in the struggle for Irish independence. Leaders of rebellion were viewed as capable of alleviating Ireland from British rule and were seen as heroes and martyrs for that reason. Indeed, the Irish identity was so strong that active participant in the 1916 uprising, Pádraic Pearse, declared, “To refuse to fight would have been to lose, to fight is to win; we have kept faith with the past, and handed on a tradition to the future” (Pearse). Evidently, Pearse believed that it was an honor to die for one’s country regardless of the outcome. This viewpoint was largely held by Irish nationalists and was used to inspire people to rebel. Undoubtedly, self-sacrifice was an integral part of the Irish identity, but it was something that Yeats struggled with in Easter 1916.
Yeats grapples with the significance of sacrifice when he begins to talk about figures who played a central role in the uprising. He starts by speaking about Countess Markiewicz, née Constance Gore-Booth who was arrested and sentenced to death due to her part in the rebellion (1172). He says that her “days were spent / In ignorant good-will,” and that “her voice grew shrill” due to her nightly political debates with fellow Irish nationalists (Yeats lines 18 & 20). Contrary to popular belief, it appears as though Yeats believed that participation in the uprising had adverse effects. More specifically, Yeats debated whether or not women should be involved in the rebellion at all. This is seen when he describes her sacrifice for the rebellion as having good-will but ultimately being ignorant. When put together, the seemingly contradictory words make Gore-Booth’s actions out to be pointless and juvenile. Yeats emphasizes this point even further when he says, “What voice more sweet than hers” grew to be shrill because of her participation in the rebellion (Yeats lines 20-21). In the eyes of Yeats, Gore-Booth’s involvement in the uprising ridded her of her femininity. Here, Yeats is not complimenting Gore-Booth as a hero but rather is criticizing her involvement which would have been a surprise to the Irish nationalists at the time. This tone of criticism towards self-sacrifice continues as Yeats describes his fellow poet, Thomas MacDonagh.
In describing MacDonagh, Yeats writes that he “Was coming into his force; / He might have won fame in the end, / So sensitive his nature seemed, / So daring and sweet his thought (Yeats lines 27-30). Unlike Gore-Booth, Yeats holds MacDonagh in higher regards by not describing the effects the rebellion had upon his masculinity. Instead, he talks about how MacDonagh was getting good at poetry and how he could have become popular just like Yeats. This point is accentuated when Yeats utilizes a semi-colon after “force”. The use of a semi-colon creates a rift within the poem causing the reader to feel pity towards MacDonagh. Furthermore, instead of describing his rebellious efforts as ignorant with good-will, Yeats portrays MacDonagh as sensitive, daring, and sweet. For these reasons, MacDonagh should not have been involved in the uprising because his talents were more conducive to the world of poetry instead of politics. Even though Yeats gives MacDonagh a lot of praise because of his poetic abilities, Yeats still seems to be apprehensive about the popular belief of dying for one’s country. Because of the rebellion, the world will never know what MacDonagh was capable of. However, Yeats’s pessimistic attitude starts to change when he describes his adversary, Major John MacBride.
Major John MacBride was perceived as Yeats’s foe due to his short marriage with Maude Gonne, a woman whom Yeats was obsessed with (1169). Energetically, Yeats describes him as “A drunken, vainglorious lout” (Yeats line 32). By introducing MacBride in this fashion, the reader’s initial reaction towards MacBride is one of apathy. In the reader’s mind, it would be hard to want to give praise to an arrogant alcoholic. Furthermore, Yeats says, “He had done most bitter wrong / To some who are near my heart,” (Yeats lines 33-34). Here, Yeats is referring to MacBride and how he hurt his beloved Maude Gonne because of the divorce (1172). By alluding to the bitterness Yeats felt for MacBride, he makes the poem very personal for his readers. In this way, the audience is able to catch a glimpse of the inner turmoil that Yeats has been going through. Unlike Gore-Booth and MacDonagh, MacBride is the only person Yeats does not give any compliment of character to. Surprisingly, however, Yeats goes on to say, “Yet I number him in the song;” and that “He, too, has been changed in his turn,” (Yeats lines 35 & 38). Through these words, Yeats contradicts his previous views on the futility of Gore-Booth and MacDonagh’s sacrifice. By numbering his adversary in Easter 1916, Yeats pays tribute to all men and women who gave up their lives for Ireland’s sake. Even though Yeats disliked MacBride, he notes how his sacrifice altered how people will remember him – not as a drunk but as a hero. This powerfully depicts how even though Yeats was frustrated with the tactics of the Irish nationalists, he still regarded people who gave up their lives as heroes and martyrs.
Although Yeats saw the terrible beauty within sacrifice, Siegfried Sassoon held a different vision due to his British heritage and active participation in the war. Furthermore, along with the ruptures that came with the physical aspects of World War I, early twentieth century physicists, psychoanalysts, and philosophers contributed to a growing sense of instability seen throughout Sassoon’s work. Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity and “A New Determination of Molecular Dimension” rendered perceptions of time and light to be less stable than previously thought (1048-1049). Work done by analytic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein contributed to “the effect of destabilizing what had been thought of as largely fixed relationships between words and meanings” (1049). These findings positioned individuals on a constant search for meaning and making sense of things which often lead to feelings of instability, fragmentation, and uncertainty. These feelings are commonly portrayed in modernist literature through what is known as a stream of consciousness, or the fluidity of thought hallmarked by American William James (1049). With this style of thought, character development within stories was achieved through personal thought rather than action. Stream of consciousness was a style of writing favored by Sassoon and is sprinkled throughout his Memoirs of an Infantry Soldier as he deals with the meaning of sacrifice due to war.
Siegfried Sassoon’s views on the significance of sacrifice differ from Yeats’s due in part to the intellectuals of his day but also because of his participation in the British side of the war. Because he was an active participant in the Battle of the Somme, Sassoon experienced the atrocities of war first-hand (1138). During the Battle of Somme, Sassoon was “deafened and stupefied” by constant bombardments (Sassoon). This commonly had an effect of what is known as shell shock which was a condition that people knew very little about because of its multiple manifestations (“Shell Shock”). The most common effect, however, according to Clifford Lane was “people being dazed, lying on a firestep you know after a bombardment, dazed, that was quite the common” (“Shell Shock”). This detachment from reality or being dazed was experienced by Sassoon and is present at the beginning of his Memoirs of and Infantry Officer. While Sassoon is being bombarded during his routinely breakfast, he sticks to his stream of consciousness and replays in his mind a MacNiven and Cameron slogan for pens: “They come as a boon and a blessing to men, / The Something, the Owl, and the Waverly Pen” (Sassoon). Because Sassoon has become accustomed to the sound of crashing bombs, his mind tends to wander. Instead of worrying about the artillery, Sassoon contrasts the dangers around him with a trivial pen advertisement. Because Sassoon speaks from a stream of consciousness, he is able to create a bewildering tone that sets up the rest of his memoir and views on sacrifice.
Due to the graphic experiences that Sassoon had during the Battle of Somme, he sees sacrifice in war as futile. This is apparent when Sassoon describes a man named Jenkins and how “His haggard blinking face haunts [his] memory” (Sassoon). Unlike Yeats, Sassoon only focuses on the physical aspects that had an effect upon the soldiers. To Sassoon, Jenkins “was an example of the paralyzing effect which such an experience cold produce on a nervous system sensitive to noise” (Sassoon). Instead of holding Jenkins up on a pedestal for serving his country, Sassoon only focuses on Jenkin’s shell-shocked face and how it had an effect upon him. Sassoon doesn’t remember Jenkins as a hero but instead only uses him as an example to show the horrors of war to his audience.
Sassoon continues to express his view of sacrifice when he compares a skirmish between his men and some Germans to a “football match.” Right before Sassoon describes the brawl, he draws upon a modernist technique known as surrealism. Setting up the scene for his readers, Sassoon writes, “Brilliant sunshine and a haze of smoke drifting along the landscape.” (Sassoon). By juxtaposing sunshine with a haze of smoke, Sassoon creates an atmosphere of strangeness. This atmosphere of strangeness then permeates the scene where, “Some Yorkshires a little way below on the left, watching the show and cheering as if at a football match” (Sassoon). Here, the futility of war and sacrifice is so apparent that Sassoon compares it to a show or football match. By comparing war to a football match, Sassoon is able to show his readers how trivial war actually is. Instead of relying upon graphic imagery to convince his readers, Sassoon is able to do so by comparing it to a petty sport such as football.
The uselessness of war and sacrifice to Sassoon can also be attributed to his experience with the introduction of trench warfare. Those who fought in trenches often experienced trench foot due to the damp conditions and often contracted fevers and diseases such as malaria (Mason). It is projected that over 6 million British soldiers experienced some sort of sickness which had a large effect upon morale (Mason). A lack of morale is apparent when Sassoon writes, “Figures filing down the trench. Two of them have gone out to look at our wire gaps! Have just eaten my last orange… I am staring at a sunlit picture of Hell…” (Sassoon). Sassoon depicts his low morale and creates a feeling of otherness when he describes the men fighting in the trench as “figures.” Instead of describing them as human, Sassoon shows how war belittled these men to a statistic. Instead of describing their acts of bravery, Sassoon portrays how their acts were meaningless by again utilizing surrealism. By contrasting the pleasure of his orange with the misery of war, Sassoon constructs an eerie scene that would have nauseated his audience. By juxtaposing war with an orange, Sassoon is able to show that these men are not fighting for anything but their own death.
Furthermore, Sassoon portrays the fruitlessness of sacrifice in war when he describes a dead German soldier that a gunner came across in the trench of Fricourt. From his dialogue with the gunner Sassoon writes, “Said Fricourt is full of dead; he saw one officer lying across a smashed machine-gun with his head bashed in – ‘a fine looking chap,’ – he said, with some emotion, which rather surprised me (Sassoon). Through graphic imagery, Sassoon is able to evoke disgust within his readers. The imagery of a man with his head bashed in would have been too much to stomach. What is peculiar however is that the gunner describes the dead German soldier as “a fine looking chap” which brought out some emotion within him. This would have been a surprise to Sassoon’s readers because why would a British soldier feel empathy for the enemy? By including this in his memoir, Sassoon is able to show that not only did the British die for nothing but so did their enemies. By complimenting the German soldier and emphasizing it with the use of dashes, Sassoon’s audience would have been left in a state of confusion and left to wonder what war is really good for.
Sassoon consolidates all of his uncertainties on the meaning of sacrifice and war in describing the aftermath at Fricourt. After the epic battle, Sassoon has a “Queer feeling, seeing people moving about freely between here and Fricourt” (Sassoon). Even though a gruesome battle had just taken place with unthinkable amounts of bloodshed, the British soldiers go on with their lives as if nothing happened. The soldiers have become so dehumanized that they do not even realize what is going on around them much like when Sassoon was distracted with the pen slogan. Sassoon concludes his thoughts on the war by conceding, “Feel a bit of a fraud” (Sassoon). By saying he feels like a fraud, Sassoon is questioning his own participation in the war. By participating in the war, Sassoon is contributing to the 19,000 casualties that the Battle of Somme produced (1138). Through an act of concession, Sassoon is able to portray to his audience that the war was not worth fighting. Even though Sassoon was awarded with a Military Cross due to his bravery, he threw it away because the war accomplished nothing – it did not even create heroes or martyrs out of people (1138).
Because of the brutality and mass casualties that arose out of the 1916 rebellion and World War I, Yeats and Sassoon felt a duty to bring the experience of war and all of its perplexities to their readers. Due to the horrific carnage because of new and unknown technologies, people of the early twentieth century had a hard time coming to terms of one’s self within the bleakness of war. On a similar front, both Yeats and Sassoon abhorred bloody combat in order to tackle social problems. They held true to the belief that “the actions and the goodwill of individual human beings could ameliorate social problems” but warfare was not the correct action to take. Even though Yeats and Sassoon shared a common vision in bringing the realities of war to their readers while adhering to modernist conventions, they differed on the significance of sacrificing oneself for their country. Because of Yeats’s Irish pride, even though he wavered in his thought, he considered those who died on Easter Monday as heroes and martyrs. Due to Sassoon’s enlistment in the British army, through the bleakness of war he came to see that there was no pride in dying for one’s country. In the end, even though Yeats and Sassoon cannot agree upon the significance behind dying for one’s country, they can agree upon one thing – the futility of war.
Works Cited
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January 2018, https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/how-to-keep-clean-and-healthy-in-the-trenches
Pearse, Pádraic. Statement (1916), The Broadview Anthology of British Literature Online
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Sassoon, Siegfried. Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (1930), The Broadview Anthology of British
Literature: Concise Edition, Broadview Press 2013.
“Shell Shock.” Voices of the First World War, Imperial War Museum, 6 June 2018,
https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/voices-of-the-first-world-war-shell-shock
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British Literature, by Joseph Black, Broadview Press, 2013, pp. 1040–1170.
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2018, https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/voices-of-the-first-world-war-weapons-of-war
Yeats, William Butler. Easter 1916 (1916), The Broadview Anthology of British Literature:
Concise Edition, Broadview Press 2013.