Siegfried Sassoon

I found Stegfried Sassoon’s portrayal of women during World War I in “Glory of Women” interesting. The poem is a sonnet that seems to have a bitter and hateful tone towards women. It is ironic that the poem is titled, “Glory of Women” because the poem does not really glorify women at all. Throughout the poem, women are described as having a sort of romantic and unrealistic view of battle. They love the soldiers for their heroism and the medals which they receive. They love to hear horror stories of the war and to talk about their soldiers’ heroic wounds. The speaker believes that the women of the time are far too removed from the war to ever really understand what the war is like and what the soldiers are going through.

The speaker of the poem begins the poem stating, “You love us when we’re heroes, home on leave, / or wounded in a mentionable place.” (1-2). The speaker uses “we” letting the reader know that these feelings are not only his feelings, but they are the feelings of many soldiers. The soldiers seem to be loved for their apparent heroism only when they come home from war or are wounded in battle. The women “worship decorations,” the medals that the soldiers bring home. Their soldier is something they can show off at home and for which they can be proud. In women’s eyes, the chivalry and heroism of the soldiers justify the horrific war happening away from them. They seem to be blinded from the real atrocities happening. The speaker speaks of a woman’s contribution to the war sarcastically, “You make us shells. You listen with delight, / By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled” (5-6). The women thought they were contributing to the war with their shells, but they were still too far away from the situation. They merely contributed to more death atrocity with their shell making. In the next few lines, the speaker seems to get angry at the women for having the audacity to call out the troops for retiring in war. He exclaims, “You can’t believe that British troops “retire” / When hell’s last horror breaks them, and they run, / Trambling the terrible corpses – blind with blood” (9-11). These images left terrible horrifying pictures of what the war might have been like in my mind. Sassoon paints a bloody picture of men running over corpses and describes their situation as “hell’s last horror.” He is attacking the women for questioning their reasoning for wanting to retire in such a situation. In his mind, the women most certainly do not have a place to say such. The last three lines of the poem seemed to change tone a little bit as it focused on a woman from the other side, a German mother. He describes, “O German mother dreaming by the fire, / While you are knitting socks to send your son / His face is trodden deeper in the mud” (12-15). This portion of the poem made me feel sad. Although Sassoon attacks women for not understanding the war, it is also sad and troubling that they were oblivious at what was going on with their soldiers at the time. Ironically, the shells that the British women were described making in the poem, are probably the same shells that killed the son of the German mother described in this poem. Although the women did not fully understand the full affect of the war, they still contributed to the horrific atrocities of it.