The poem Repression of War Experience by Siegfried Sassoon reflects his personal feelings of open condemnation of WW1 which he was once a part of. Sassoon describes a soldier written in first person that we can assume is the poet himself. The male may well be a soldier returned from war and is traumatized from the experience. It is known that many soldiers suffered from post traumatic stress syndrome which left them on the brink of insanity as they cannot come to terms with the cruelty and brutality of war. The soldiers are always young men who leave the comforts of home to fight a battle they may not understand. They witness their friends and colleagues being killed in agonizing pain and may themselves if they live to tell the tale suffer physical and emotional scars. They are often in denial and become reclusive or social outcasts.
The poem starts with a young soldier alone at home. The use of a metaphor, the moth having its wings singed represents a soldier being hurt or killed in war. The lighting of the candles that burns the hapless and naive moth has religiousness symbolism. It is ideals and glory that lead the self righteous to war little realizing the lost cause or the sacrifice they will make. They are drawn to war like a moth to a flame little knowing of the price to pay. “Liquid flame” is a misnomer as fire is not a liquid state but could be used to describe drowning.
The soldier tries not to think of his war experience “gagged all day come back to scare you,” (5) but fails. This enforces the title where the soldier tries to repress his war experience but to no avail as it still taunts and haunts him at night. He tries to reassure himself that to think about his negative experiences as long as you don’t “lose control of your ugly thoughts,” (7) but the truth is he is afraid that he may be on the brink. In order to reinforce this thought and to prove himself he is still sane he tells himself to light a pipe with a steady hand that will show no nerves and take a deep breath, count and rid himself of all bad thoughts. He uses the term “right as rain” to signify himself to be ok, but this only leads him to a train of thought on rain. Clearly, the soldier is giving himself self help therapy as he battles with his demons.
He wishes it would rain hard to figuratively cut out the darkness and silence which would comfort him, relieve him of his loneliness and be a welcome distraction, “water to sluice the dark” (14). Darkness and night is always a difficult time for anyone as it is eerie. His mind now wanders to the books on the shelf as he ponders their usefulness of company to wile away the time, and the knowledge they impart. Instead he is unable to focus on reading despite his own advice and instead bites his nails which is a habit borne of nervousness and insecurity, which matches the criteria of his jittery state. He describes “listens to the silence” which is a juxtaposition as no one can hear silence but again shows his fragile mental state akin to a mental patient in a cell. He is of course a prisoner of his own mind and his own demons. The personification of the garden, “waits for something that delays,” (27) mirrors him waiting for daybreak with sunlight and comfort which never seems to come as the night drags on.
He sees shadows as ghosts or spirits of old men who must have had natural slow deaths after living a full perhaps sinful life, “old men with ugly souls, who wore their bodies out with nasty sins” (31). This is in contrast to the deaths at war in France who cannot be lurking outside, and who were denied a full life due to their lives being abruptly and violently short. This brings up contrasting imagery that glorifies the selfless soldier and his sacrifice.
At the end of the poem there is signs of guilt of why he has survived and is “simmering safe at home” (33). He again mentions the peace and silence which is in contrast with the deafening noise of battle in far away France. The soldier, however then contradicts himself when he tells the audience he can hear the endless guns of battle that disturbs his peace and solitude, and even wants reassurance that we the reader hear them too. This shows classic case of insanity as the soldier is mentally traumatized. However at the end the soldier gives up his denial and surrenders himself to his disturbed state of mind. The repression has stopped and now perhaps the healing can start…
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