How Sassoon Captures the Brutality, Futility and Horror of Trench Warfare Towards His Audiences Essay

I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men be being sacrificed. Siegfried Sassoon. Sassoon was a well known English poet who had gained recognition by writing about his experiences in the trenches as a pass during WWI. Sassoon uses his experience to express the suffering he had undertaken on the battlefield which were describe as brutalising, horrific and an unjustifiable waste of human lives. Thus it is through with(predicate) these practices that in allow Sassoon to capture the brutality, futility and hatred of trench warf are towards his audiences. byout all the works of Sassoon, four poems have stood out to demonstrate these cardinal solutions. Brutality being illustrated through heel counter Attack and suicide in the Trenches, The Hero and Does it Matter? demonstrating futility whilst Counter Attack and Suicide in the Trenches expressing horror.Brutality the trait of extreme cruel ty. Counter Attack illustrates brutality through the quote And butchered, frantic gestures of the murdered, a hyperbole and metaphor has been used to create this ferocious scene. Juxtaposition has alike been used to express the soldiers movements in contrast to those from the dead. With the use of these techniques it allows the audience to visualise the brutal aftermath of an all too common battle. Down, and down, and down, he sank and drowned, repetition of the word down has been employed emphasising the soldiers brutal death as well as generating harsh, visual imagination. In Suicide in the Trenches, the statement The hell where youth and joke go, juxtaposition is utilised to reveal that war is of horror and viciousness which is comparable to hell in victorious away the innocence of soldiers. Also, He put a bullet through his brain, Sassoon has made this statement passing direct and clinical giving it a dramatic effect when reading.There is the use of vivid imagery which ass ists in displaying the brutal reality of men in the trenches where they would commit suicide just to escape war. Futility the timbre of having no useful result, useless/lack of importance or purpose. Within the poem The Hero, quotes And no one seemed to care except that lonely(prenominal) woman with white hair, and We mothers are so proud of our dead soldiers, emotive language has taken place in these 2 statements enabling the audience to realize how work-shy war was back then because at once the soldiers fought and died, no-one seemed to care that they had kick inn up their lives. He thought how jack,cold-footed, useless swine. A metaphor has been applied to the words cold-footed to give an idea that the solider was being compared to a black pig along with the fact he was scared and a coward when going to fight.Thus this portrays futility by describing how the soldier was picked to fight for his country but lacked off not being useful when needed. Although in the poem, Doe s it Matter? this accent has been repeated a number of times all through the poem through the utilisation of a rhetorical question inquiring the audience if going to war and fighting for your country really hatch anything. As well as, a sarcastic tone has been put in place due to the questions that Sassoon asks his audiences are bizarre, such as, Does it matter? losing your legs? and Does it matter? losing your sight? It is through these quotes and techniques that allow Sassoon to emphasise on the theme of futility and how once you fight for your country and come into contact with all sorts of injuries, no one really cares hence imparting the message it was pointless to go to war and a waste of time. Horror an intense feeling of fear, ravish or disgust. In the poem Counter Attack, the line Bullets spat, personification has been applied to give audiences an unpleasant image of war. Onomatopoeia has been employed to add sound effects along with creating scenery and surrounding s of where the soldiers fought. It is with these techniques that the theme horror is generated as audiences would fear where the bullets would hit them bullets coming from all different directions.Furthermore, Wallowed like trodden sand-bags loosely filled, a simile has been engaged here to compare the soldiers to sand bags that roll loosely when fighting. Consequently, this highlights horror to Sassoons audiences as he wanted to fright and remind his audience of how rough the luck were of where the soldiers fought. Throughout the poem Suicide in the Trenches, the line Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, personification is adopted by constructing a lonely and isolated background on top of symbolising fear due to soldiers sleeping by themselves in the trenches and do not know what will happen if they will wake up dead or alive.With crumps and lice and lack of rum, the word and uses repetition when listing the endless, disastrous events that Sassoon went through. Imagery has a lso been exploited to show the foul conditions of the trenches back then. Therefore, horror has been depicted from the bad conditions Sassoon had to live in as a result sickening audiences. It is through these works of Sassoon that has given us and insight and understanding of what war was like back then. Through the numerous techniques used by Sassoon it has allowed us, as an audience to understand and empathise with Sassoon about the brutalising and horrifying circumstances of war.