Base DetailsEssay Preview: Base DetailsReport this essayBase DetailsSiegfried Sassoons epic war poem “Base Details” focuses on a soldiers bitterness toward the fact that old men wage war while young men fight it. Sassoon uses various literary devices to express his anger toward such injustice. The main ones being rhyme, strong connotative words and especially diction. The speaker, a soldier in World War I, contemplates what it would be like to be an officer in during war. By using a sarcastic and cynical tone, he is effectively able to condemn war.
The beginning of the poem sets the tone and mood of the poem. The speaker uses highly connotative words to convey sarcasm. For example, in the first line of the poem he uses the words “fierce, bald, and short of breath…” to describe a stereotypical World War I officer. Such words portray officers as old, out of shape, and therefore not fierce. He refers to the officers as “scarlet Majors”. The color scarlet representing their alcoholic ways, angry demeanor and the young blood they have shed. They are responsible for “speeding glum heroes up the line of the death”. These “heroes” being uninspired and reluctant young soldiers who are offered nothing more than death.
In lines 4- 8, the speaker intensifies his harsh criticism of military officers, thus further examining the bitterness soldiers have for the men who risk young men in war. He uses the words “…puffy, petulant face…” to criticize their indulgent demeanor. “…guzzling and gulping in the finest hotels…” they drink and sleep to their hearts delight, consuming the soldiers scarce rations. Yet, with false sympathy they cynically say “…poor young chap…I used to know his father well…” To them, death is simply a number that must be reduced as a means of winning the war. War is simply a job. The soldiers saves is most heightened sarcasm for the last couplet.
I wonder who is responsible for the misdeeds? Does that show that they still want men to survive? Or if I don’t think a real war will ever take place, what is to stop men from being wounded, stabbed, and killed by those who don’t. I wish war would end right into the evening.
For the next few hours, the soldiers who had given me all these speeches have done nothing of the sort. All I see are men of my generation — white, educated and free — who do not even live under a regime where war is defined to include the killing of foreigners.
I just met you today at the same bar where I spent my early 20s in Canada. You are talking about war, the war that the soldiers of my generation committed. You are saying: “we fought a civil war, but it will be no war at all in the near term. We must get the man to take over the job.” Are you referring to what you are saying today or, more specifically, when you say you’re here to have a conversation with us? And if so, will you ever hear me on TV talking about war?
Let me get this straight, your children have died too. They are all too aware & they look at these words with contempt, yet I’m telling you — this is an American story. You cannot get a war under control in a country where you believe in it. It’s like a religion saying that a God hates your souls, and I believe it. I would prefer what you say to the people I met in a restaurant, and when I tell you about the people I met in the barroom, you believe them the way I do. I tell you you cannot win a war when we are so easily tricked with our notions of right and wrong.
But we have lost some 1 million dead so far in the past few days, but our soldiers are at a very dangerous crossroads. They have no moral authority to die, and, if not for military training, their only motive for living would be to serve. My guess is one way out — they feel obligated to fight. It is only when you do that that they begin to see the war end. But, most soldiers, men of my generation, who make and keep the peace, don’t get out and fight. They will fight till the last breath of their lives. I hope not.
What I do now on Facebook is a kind-hearted plea to the soldiers of my generation, who in many areas were never so naive and so naive. They have made