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Sassoon - Coggle Diagram
Sassoon
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“Me trying to stop the war was a bit like trying to stop the ship would have been… a little figure jumping up and down, waving its arms.”
- Expresses the futility and impotence of individual efforts to halt the vast, unstoppable machinery of war
- The "little figure" connotes the overwhelming scale and inertia of conflict
- Sassoon acknowledges the powerlessness of his protest in the face of institutional and systemic forces, yet the metaphor also subtly suggests his frustration with the futility of traditional forms of resistance
“When I woke up the nightmares didn’t always stop… the pavement was covered in corpses… people were treading on their faces.”
- The phrase “the pavement was covered in corpses” conveys the omnipresence of death in his consciousness, while "people were treading on their faces" reflects the degradation and disregard for human life in the aftermath of battle
- Suggests a sense of horror and helplessness, emphasizing how the nightmares of war are inescapable, even in waking moments
- It also speaks to the loss of human dignity and the profound emotional scars inflicted on soldiers, which persist long after the violence itself has ended
- Apart of opening up about his war experiences to Dr Rivers at the beginning of the novel
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Helps to catalyse and contribute to the onset of Rivers' own regeneration despite it coming out of the cost of Sassoon's regeneration
Used as a conduit to explore the seemingly intoxicating notions of patriotism and duty as these, in the end, triumph over Sassoon's moral convictions
Used as a conduit to deconstruct Edwardian depictions of masculinity- adding nuance and layers to an otherwise 'black and white' or 'two dimensional' depiction of manhood
Problematises notions of outright pacifism, suggesting society needs to adopt a more progressive and nuanced approach to war