Language and style
The language and style of the poem “Suicide in the Trenches” by Siegfried Sassoon are relevant analytical elements which you should also focus on when discussing “Suicide in the Trenches” by Siegfried Sassoon. Here, we will focus on:
- Playing with the language
- Tense of the verbs & Type of words used
- Style & mode of expression
- Sentence structure
- Irony
- The effect of the language and style
Playing with the language
The poet plays with language in this poem through irony, through certain expressions which can be interpreted in several ways and through metaphors.
The poet is ironical and sarcastic when he addresses the crowds cheering the soldiers, telling them to “pray you'll never know/The hell where youth and laughter go” (ll. 11-12).
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Tense of the verbs & Type of words used
The poem combines past tense with present tense. The first two quatrains are rendered in the past tense because they are meant to be an account of a story about a soldier the speaker knew: “grinned” (l. 2), “slept” (l. 3), “whistled” (l. 4), “put” (l. 7), “spoke” (l. 8).
Present tense is used in the third stanza because the poet describes a general situation,...
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Style & mode of expression
The style of the poem is ordinary and grave. The author does not employ pretentious or solemn words, but rather a simple and direct vocabulary, although most of the words used have a grave/morbid meaning.
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Irony
The poem also includes irony and sarcasm, which are first created by the contrast between stanza one and stanza two. The first quatrain presents a joyful soldier, while in stanza two the same soldier commits suicide.
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