Siegfried Sassoon's "The Rear Guard" Analysis

To someone just picking up this book, this scene would simply look like some poor soldiers developing a temporary and innocent coping mechanism to deal with Death as they face him head on. But

Don’t leave me here alone.’ The narrator simply shakes him off and moves on. The soldiers have been trained like beasts and they have been dehumanised; they have been taught that no life is to be spared. Death is now the norm and they have been desensitized to it. The narrator relates an incident where he volunteers for a raid on the German trenches. He experiences much trauma; he kills a soldier, Karl. Karl’s death is terrible- the bayonet is trapped in Karl and eventually the narrator has to shoot him. When he returns to the trenches with two German prisoners he tries to suppress what has happened: ‘It is better not to think’. The narrator knows that he would indubitably go insane if he thinks about his action. Karl’s death epitomizes the fact that soldiers on both sides are killed in horrific way for no discernible reason. There is definitely nothing glorious or heroic about war.

The use of repetitant capitalisation of the first "GAS" and the use of exclamation marks creates this mood. The next line "An ecstasy of fumbling" adds to the current poem atmosphere with everyone fumbling to have the masks on before being affected by gas. An anti-climax of helmets being fitted "just in time" misleads the reader into thinking that the helmets all were put on successfully but in the following plosive conjunction "but" the reader now understands this is not the case. Again in the last line Owen requests for the attention of the reader with the personal pronoun and simile "As under a green sea, I saw him drowning" an image of the fog of green air in which the soldiers disappear in is generated in the mind of the reader.

Most significantly, the isolation of the characters forms the grim mood. The noseless soldier is a misfit among the three other soldiers. He wears a “black silk handkerchief” on his face, because he does not have a nose (455). His separation from the other soldiers suggests a sorrowful mood. The narrator feels isolated from the other soldiers, because he thinks that he is not the heroic type. He believes that his being wounded is an accident (455). He also does not see himself as a “hawk”

Through “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” the soldiers standing, watching as everything goes on around them, are not able to stop what is happening. The soldiers represent the unforgiving nature of war.

Then, "An ecstasy of fumbling / Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time / But someone still was yelling out and stumbling [. . .]. " Everyone has managed to put on his mask, except one unfortunate soldier. As the mustard gas seeps into his lungs, he begins to scream and jerk around, but it is too late for his companions to save him. "[W]atch the white eyes writing in his face / His hanging face / [. . .] at every jolt, the blood / Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs [. . .] / Of vile, incurable sores on the innocent tongue [. . .]. " Nowhere in the entire poem is there any mention of how wonderful and brave the soldiers feel at being given the chance to die for their country.

Thus, O’Brien wants the readers to understand that it is not the events that happened, but the feelings these men felt, and emphasize this by repeating it multiple times; then described that it is this way because since the soldiers are in the war they lose the sense of what is real and unreal. Therefore, O’Brien does this so his audience understand that there is more to the story than just words. As well as to make his audience think deeper in a way that when he is using metaphors saying “war is hell” war is not actually hell, but the events that occurred, people dying, being isolated, feeling shame because they acted unreasonable, made these men feel like they were actually in hell. Therefore, he successfully persuades the audience that the war stories are true and untrue by reinforcing his message at the end, and leave the reader with a final thought which is his whole point in this

(O’Brien 152). The reader is constantly second guessing themselves. This experience allows one to relate to the feeling of the soldiers, one of constant wondering, “Is this alright?” and/or “What am I fighting for?” Thus, the soldiers experiencing the paradoxical nature of war in this story is mirrored and experienced by the

The men were also “Drunk with fatigue” because they never had time to rest from the fighting and marching, and this metaphor makes it apparent that the men are so tired they are actually stumbling and staggering to continue much like someone who is inebriated would (7). The speaker goes on to use a simile to describe a man who did not get his gas mask on fast enough and now he “was yelling out and stumbling / And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime” because the gas was melting his insides and was acting much like a fish out of water would, suffering from excruciating pain (11-12). The speaker further describes the man suffering because of the gas, while he himself had his mask on fast enough, “As under a green sea, I saw him drowning” (14). When the speaker uses this simile describing the man drowning under the green sea, he is actually referring to the man literally drowning in his own blood because the sea of green gas had melted his lungs causing him to choke and die on his own blood. It is evident that the similes and metaphors the speaker is using to describe the soldiers and the entire situation of the war he is stuck within are becoming more and more gut-wrenching, and the speaker’s tone becomes more and more corrective and angry. The

Siegfried Sassoon's poem The Rear-Guard is the story of a soldier, whose facilities have been compromised, frantically trying to escape the tainted and filth of an tunnel in which a war is raging above him. The poem if filled with a very real sense of urgency and horror in this poem. This is no glorious image of war, of charging machine gun nests or pulling wounded comrades out of harm’s way heroically in the eyes of one’s countrymen, but an image of a different sort. One a soldier faces daily, alone and filled with trepidation. This poem is about the images soldiers face in their mind. It clearly comes across as autobiographical; no battle inspired rhymer could understand a scene that comes off as more terrifying as engagement itself.

The description of a wounded soldier falling is an image etched in the minds of the soldiers in the battlefield. “He danced with tall grass / for a moment, like he was swaying / with a woman” (lines 1-3). The soldiers had to hold on to whatever hope that had of seeing their families again. This is evident in the fact that the dead soldier had a picture of his loved one in his hand when he died. “I slid the wallet into his pocket / & turned him over, so he wouldn’t be / kissing the ground” (15-17). The black soldier putting the picture in the dead soldier’s wallet and the wallet back in his pocket shows respect for the fallen, no matter the race of the soldier or if he was the enemy. Turning the soldier face up, shows dignity and honor to the fallen one. This act also shows compassion on the part of the black soldier. A fallen soldier reminds them that they never know when they will become a casualty of war. When it comes to loss, all the soldiers on both sides share a common

Finally, it may suggest the face paint soldiers wear so they can blend in with their surroundings. The next few lines span a range of emotions which include: anger, sadness expressed through tears, and the persona's resolve not to cry. He even curses himself for beginning to cry, an action that can be considered un-masculine for a man.

in a war to be noble but for most of the soldiers it was anything but noble.

Study by definition is the application of mind to the knowledge that one have, as by reading, observation, writing or talking. Many people have acknowledged the benefits of studies in lives and that is one of the reason why the education system exist. Studies have lots of advantages, but if people both study and apply it to their lives, the knowledge that they have would last longer and give more benefits to them. In “Of Studies,” Francis Bacon points out about the importance of studies and how it is useful in practical application. In “The Colonel,” Michael Hogan describes his experiences in learning tennis from an army colonel who also taught him life’s lessons. Although Bacon and Hogan are both writing about knowledge and lessons, that

Since the soldiers could do nothing to help the dying man they “flung” (line 18) him behind a wagon. This shows how people are dehumanized in war and their lives are disposable and can simply be flung away to become another statistic. When the narrator says, “In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,” (line 15) it insinuates that all his dreams have been replaced by nightmares of the chilling memory of how he could not do anything to help his fellow soldier. He can only replay the horrific memory of the gas attack over and over inside his head. The reader cannot help but visualize this young soldier dying a slow, painful death. This emphasizes the sarcasm in the title. How can anyone glorify a death so horrible?