Speaker and characters

The poem “Suicide in the Trenches” by Siegfried Sassoon includes a lyrical speaker or narrator and two characters: the “soldier boy” (l. 1) and the “crowds” (l. 9) of civilians.

The narrator

The narrator of the poem is only a lyrical voice who is outside of what he is describing. For this reason, we can consider him to be a lyrical persona of the poet, of Siegfried Sassoon.

In the poem, he simply confines himself to describing the soldier boy he knew, the way he committed suicide and the crowds’ attitude to marching soldiers. However, the way he describes these three aspects suggests that he...

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The soldier

The soldier is the focus of the first two stanzas of the poem, which describe him in contrast. First, he is presented as a “soldier boy” (l. 1) indicating that he is young and vulnerable.

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The crowds

Finally, the poem also includes a collective character; that of the crowds which represent civil society back home. Civilians are described by the speaker as “smug-faced crowds” (l. 9), which indicates that they are full...

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