Survivors: A Critical Analysis

A very apt analysis of the poem 'Survivors' written by Siegfried Sassoon given by Anaida D'souza:
 
In his poem ‘Survivors’, Siegfried Sassoon gives the readers a satirical and paradoxical take on war and its effect on the soldiers who partake in it. This particular poem was written by Sassoon when he was spending his time in the Craiglockhart hospital where he was forced into convalescence due to his strong portrayal of anti- war emotions. On arriving at the hospital he was diagnosed with neurasthenia and had it not been for the work of his psychologist Dr. Rivers, Sassoon would have paved a tragic path to his self destruction. 

The poem being deliberately contradictory in nature begins by giving the reader a sense of assurance that ‘no doubt they’ll soon get well’ only to be followed by a scathing portrayal of the symptoms of being ‘shell shocked’ wherein the soldiers speak in a disconnected and incoherent manner. In the phrase that follows, he mentions that the soldiers are rather ecstatic about their future return to the war front and he follows it up by giving an exacting and factual take on the situation, wherein these soldiers who were once robust and vigorous men are now learning to walk again implying their predicament and making the readers empathize with them. 

In the consecutive lines, the poet speaks about the soldiers ‘haunted nights and their cowed subjection to the ghosts of friends who died’. This line is highly subjective in nature which holds an underlying reference to the nightmares that plagued Sassoon where he would witness corpses lining the roads in their deceased slumber and summoning him to join in their fate. Visibly shaken after these occurrences, Sassoon often mentioned them in his poems. This also implies the fragile state of mind the soldiers are in, when they come across the ghosts of the friends they lost at war and the guilt of having survived the bloody and gruesome ordeal, which they will carry with themselves to their graves and the cross of existence which bears down on their frames. 

In the second last phrase, Sassoon speaks from a non combatant’s point of view when he says that the soldiers would one day be honored and proud of the war they served in, which only but crushed and shattered their pride. Sassoon ends the poem on a derisive and accusatory note when he says that these fledgling and willing men who headed out to war with a misplaced sense of patriotism now look at us with eyes that are broken and mad, implying an emotionally scarred demeanor. 

This poem is a measured jibe at the non combatants, comprising of politicians and influential personalities in society who glorify the ghastly reality that is war and is an attempt on the poet’s behalf to make known the authentic experience. Riveting and blunt in nature, this poem is one of the finest war poems of all times and has inspired several others to write more graphic renditions of the First World War.