Sassoon's Use of Irony in "Glory of Women"

Tomoe Kanaya (29 September 1997): English 354/Finley

	The role of women during the Great War has been portrayed in many different 
ways in literature.  They are seen as factory workers, nurses who saved soldierís lives, 
sweethearts and relatives to label just a few.  In "Glory of Women, Siegfried Sassoon 
makes ample use of irony within the structure and the content in order to portray his view 
of the role of the young, working, British woman during this time period. 
	Sassoon's use of irony can first be seen in the structure of the poem itself. A 
superficial glance at the poem shows that it is written in fourteen lines, making it appear as 
a sonnet. A closer look at the structure, however, shows that "Glory of Women" is in the 
form of both the English and the Italian sonnet, creating a completely unique sonnet 
altogether.  There is an octet, which a closer look shows is really two quatrains, and a 
sestet which are distinguished by a subtle change in mood and characterize the Italian 
sonnet.  The two quatrains, a characteristic of the English sonnet that can be identified 
through the rhyme scheme abab cdcd, focus on the women's admiration for their soldier 
sweethearts.  The sestet (containing the rhyme scheme efggfe), on the other hand,  focuses 
on Sassson's bitterness over the fact that their admiration is conditional and does not apply 
for defeated soldiers.  In addition to this, he replaces the rhyming couplet used in the 
English sonnet to summarize the intention of the sonnet with the last three lines of the 
sestet, marked off by margins that are different from the rest of the poem.
	Not only does Sassoon make use of irony in order to create this hybrid form of the 
sonnet, but he also uses it within the content of the poem.  For example, the bitter tone of 
the poem is far from the doting tone commonly seen in the traditional sonnet, which is 
usually used to write about love.  On the contrary, Sassoon depicts these soldiers'
sweethearts in the workforce as capricious hypocrites with misguided ideation about the 
heroics of war.  Not only do their sympathies lie only with the soldiers who are heroes,
who do not "'retire' when hell's last horror breaks them," but also when their wounds 
occur in a "mentionable place"(Sassoon, 132).    They see the war as romantic, full of 
danger and chivalry when, in reality, it is full of "trampling corpses", "horror", and "blood"
(Ibid.).
	There is further irony within the aforementioned last three lines. These lines leave 
the reader with the final image of a devoted, German soldier's mother knitting by a fire.  
This image is a stark juxtaposition from the image of the British women in a factory making 
the shells that are killing the German soldiers. This juxtaposition leads to the final and most 
potent irony of one woman's power to create another woman's grief, the latter of which 
would prefer her soldier to be without decorations than to have "his face trodden deeper in 
mud"(Ibid.).  In Sassoon's view, this is the glory of women.  Even the title is overtly ironic 
because the descriptions of these women are far from evoking any sense of pride or honor.  
	Because "every war is ironic" (Fussell, 7), almost all depictions of war use irony. 
Sassoon uses the common literary devise to create an uncommon portrayal.  "Glory of 
Women" gives an unflattering, although empowering, depiction of the young, working, 
British woman. This double role not only caused much grief in Sassoon's eyes, but also
helped the British troops win the war.
 
WORKS CITED
Fussell, Paul. The Great War and Modern Memory. (New York: Oxford University Press, 
	Inc., 1975). 
Sassoon, Siegried. "Glory of Women,"  in The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry. 
	ed. Jon Silkin, (New York: Penguin Books, 1981).