World War I: Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Sassoon's poem, Glory of Women, was very displeasing to me. Sassoon uses extensive irony to show his bitter and hateful attitude towards the role of the young, working, British women of this time period. This irony begins with the very title of the poem: "Glory of Women," when in no way does this poem seek to glorify women at all. The form of the writing is also rather ironic, for it is written in the form of a sonnet, whose content is usually doting and happy, rather than hating and bitter. The poem outlines the ways in which women show admiration for the soldiers, but Sassoon believes their love to be highly conditional, as it does not apply for the defeated soldiers. Ultimately, he believes these women to be fickle hypocrites who have no business in fancying the tales, wounds, and medals associated with war because they are truly misguided in their definition of heroism. Sassoon begins by writing: 

"You love us when we're heroes, home on leave,

Or wounded in a mentionable place

You worship decorations; you believe

That chivalry redeems the war's disgrace"(1099). 

Sassoon attempts to capture the feelings of every soldier as he uses the pronoun, "we" to show his realization of these women's motives is not just his own, but is the shared notion of many soldiers. The women only love the soldiers for their supposed heroism when the soldiers return from war, wounded from a battle. The women "worship" the the medals the soldiers receive, but only because a decorated soldier is like a trophy himself, one to be flaunted about the town by the woman deemed his sweetheart. The women believe the heroism and "chivalry" of these soldiers to validate the the stigma associated with war; but they are all the while ignorant of the true horrors a soldier endures while at war. 

Sassoon mocks the women's attempt to contribute when he writes sarcastically, "You make us shells. You listen with delight,/ You crown our distant ardours as we fight"(1099). These women, while believing war to be romantic, hoping to be of some help with their insignificant shell-making and worthless encouragement. While actually, the women unknowingly only helping in allowing for more death and blood-shed with their shell-making. Sassoon then condemns the women when he writes:

"You can't believe that British troops 'retire'

When hell's last horror breaks them, and they run,

Trampling the terrible corpses --- blind with blood"(1099).

Sassoon is amazed by the audacity these women have to be unable to find understanding for soldiers who wish to "retire," when the women are completely unaware of the horrific scene Sassoon paints of a battle scene: bloody, filled with corpses, and even hell-like. The women are so far removed from the concept of war that this scene would seem rather like an frightening animation than appalling actuality. The women question a soldiers retirement from war simply because their knowledge of war is so terribly underdeveloped, thus had they been aware of what a soldier really went through, they would probably encourage them to quit. 

The final lines of the poem juxtapose the British women with a German mother:

"O German mother dreaming by the fire,

While you are knitting socks to send your son

His face is trodden deeper in the mud"(1099). 

Sassoon attempts to compare these women to show that British women are in the factories making the shells that murder the German soldiers, the sons of the German mothers Sassoon speaks of. The final and most powerful irony of the poem lies here: the ability of one woman to ultimately be responsible for another woman's grief, who unlike the other women would prefer her soldier to return without decorations, wounds, or even tales, but her soldier is left "trodden deeper in the mud." 

The reality of war is often harsh and ill-understood for those who have no first-hand experience. Unfortunately, Sassoon is also harsh and a little unfair to the women of Britain during World War I. First, these women cannot to completely to blame for their futile knowledge of war. Exactly how were they expected to gain a more sufficient knowledge? Although some women may have found value in the wrong aspects of a soldier, at least they appreciated the underlying cause of the soldier's action, to protect their nation and stand united against the enemy. Second, when Sassoon successfully juxtaposes the British women and the German mother, it is as if he removes everything between the two, such that the British woman is the only agent that led to the event causing the German mother's despair. Unfortunately, this was far from the case. The British woman neither commanded the rifles to be fired, nor did she fire the rifle. Just as Sassoon claimed the women to be so far removed from the concepts of war, they are too equally removed in this case. Overall, I believed Sassoon's poem to be thought-provoking and debatable. However, I found it to be truly interesting that in the midst of war, a time when a nations unity is most crucial, Sassoon whines about all British women, claiming they are ignorant and destructive; thus, Sassoon is guilty of the very offenses he is ascribing to women, for he is being destructive with maintaining Britain's unity and is ignorant of the positive aspects the women could have been contributing.