The Rear-Guard Essay Questions

How does the poem's form interact with its content?

Overall, the form of the poem helps instill a sense of disorientation, reflecting the soldier's internal state. All the poem's stanzas are composed of different lengths. There is a meter (iambic pentameter) and a rhyme scheme, which bring order into the disorienting atmosphere. This resembles the sense of discipline required of military personnel. But the meter is broken in several key places, and the rhyme scheme is not a regular pattern. For example, words such as "groping," "tripping," and "savage," are trochees, disrupting the iambic rhythm. Despite the soldier's determination to make it through the tunnel, sleep deprivation and stress are taking their toll on his mental state.

What is being romanticized in the poem?

The world above the subterranean tunnel is a romantic ideal, despite the battle being waged. The description of the "rosy gloom of battle overhead" is the first instance of this unexpected romanticization (Line 7). Roses symbolize passion, and a rosy color suggests a flush of health. The horrors of the battle are not entirely ignored, as indicated by descriptions like "gloom" and "the boom of shells," but the soldier is still anxious to return to the world above (Lines 7 and 22).

What is significant about the figure that the soldier encounters?

In his stressed, isolated, and sleep-deprived state, the soldier mistakes a dead man for a sleeping figure. As in other poems by Sassoon such as "The Death Bed," sleep and death are closely intertwined in "The Rear-Guard." The lack of response from the figure lying huddled on the ground brings out all of the soldier's bitter frustration. The word "savage" is used to describe the way the soldier kicks the figure, implying an animalistic impulse. Just as a hard death has dehumanized the body of the figure, the soldier, too, is stripped of his humanity in this moment.

The term "fists of fingers" evokes multiple fists, which could represent the sheer number of men who died as a result of the war. Sassoon's discontent with this fact is made clear by the way he shares gruesome details about the war with readers.