suicide in the trenches poetry analysis

A lighthearted, immature, jovial boy gets thrown into the terrors of war. In the poem “Suicide in the Trenches”, the mood goes from spring to winter, happy to depressed, this solider boy’s life was changed in the war. The solider boy was transformed by the trenches, just like millions of other men who had to deal with these same conditions. Erich Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, echoes many aspects and themes this poem holds. The novel goes in depth and displays how the soldiers were forced to suppress and disconnect themselves with their feelings to simply survive emotionally and focus on fighting. In the poem Suicide in the Trenches, Siegfried Sasson uses rhythm and meter structure, emotional connections, imagery, and sound tools to display the theme of the lost generation and the realities of war that greatly effected and stole the youth of many young men, a theme that is mimicked in the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front.

The solider boy woke up with a simple joy of spring with the chippers from a lark but the poem quickly shifts to a different season, which brings depression and fear; winter. Sasson creates the shift between seasons to help show the soldiers shift between mental states. Suicide in the Trenches is built on three stanzas with a rhyming scheme that makes the poem easier to read. This adds a cheerful aspect that underlines the disconnection between the riveting perception of war and the true horrors of war. The first stanza portrays this happy, eager boy who prepares for the war with no negative notions. Then the second stanza has a major shift to the dreariness of winter, huddled in the bleak trenches fighting. Sassoon builds the depressed feeling the trenches has brought with it, “ In wi...

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...solider boy allowed himself to get to a place of depression, he was just a boy, and he couldn’t handle the constant fear. In Suicide in the Trenches, a simple solider loses his youth and in the novel Paul says, “He is right we are not youth any longer…we had begun to love life and the world; and we had shoot it to pieces.” (87-88) This quote shows how this generation of men is lost. In the poem the solider felt the only thing to end his fear was to take his own life. The men in the novel come terms to the fact they aren’t boys anymore, because no boy should ever have to experience these horrors. In the poem, Siegfried Sasson uses structure, emotional connections, imagery, and devices to display the theme of the lost generation and the realities of war, a theme that is mimicked in, All Quiet on the Western Front. The solider boy was murdered by war, not by himself.