Aftermath War Poem Analysis (5/11/14)

Aftermath

Siegfried Sassoon.

The words "have you forgotten yet?"  are repeated throughout the poem. This is not only a rhetorical question but emphasises that fact that war was so hard not to forget because of the massive impact it had on people. 

"Like clouds in the lit heavens of life" in line 5 of the poem, juxtaposes war because war is mainly about death, not "life." It is also a similie. 

Stanza 2 of the poem is more about the reality of war and the conditions. For example, "Do you remember the rats; and the stench

Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench." shows the soldiers had to live in these awful conditions and see some horrible things. "and the stench/of corpses rotting" is enjambment. This is used to emphasise that the smell was bad, but it was even worse because it was the rotting of human corpses in front of the soldiers. 

Also in the second stanza, Sassoon uses pathetic fallacy as well as personification. "and chill with a hopeless rain" creates a sad and useless atmosphere.

"Is it all going to happen again?" is ironic because not long after the poem was written (1919) World War 2 began.

In stanza 3, the line "as you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men" can be seen as foreshadowing because "doomed" shows the end will most likely be bad for the soldiers; them dying. The final line in the third stanza "masks of the lads who were once keen and kind and gay" indicates war was not what people first thought it would be like. It wasn't all about fighting and bravery.

In conclusion, Sassoon wants the reader not to forget about the war (hence the repetition of "have you forgotten yet?") because it was so tragic and people need to remember lives that were lost in World War 1.