The Death Bed Quizzes

1 Which best describes the poem's speaker?

Unidentified, third-person

Omniscient, third-person; addresses the soldier using second-person

All-knowing, first-person, addresses the reader using second-person

Omniscient, third-person; addresses the reader using second-person
2 Describe the form.

Six stanzas composed of different lengths

Six sextets

Seven stanzas composed of different lengths

Seven sextets
3 What senses are engaged in this poem?

Auditory, gustatory, olfactory

Visual, tactile, auditory

All senses

Visual
4 Which of the following is not a metaphor in the poem?

Water

"in the wings of sleep"

"his mortal shore / Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death"

"silence heaped / Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls"
5 Which best describes a metaphor?

A comparison between two things that are otherwise unrelated using the words "like" or "as"

A word or phrase used in a non-literal sense for rhetorical or vivid effec

A description of one thing by way of another, unrelated thing

The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words
6 Which is not an example of alliteration?

"Silence and safety"

"That soak the woods; not the harsh rain"

"Light many lamps and gather round his bed. / Lend him your...will to live"

"And there was silence in the summer night; / Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep"
7 What is alliteration?

A comparison between two things that are otherwise unrelated using the words "like" or "as"

The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words

A word or phrase used in a non-literal sense for rhetorical or vivid effect

A comparison between two things that are otherwise unrelated
8 What is the reader implored to do?

Protest the war by writing letters.

Care for the dying soldier's physical and energetic needs.

Enlist and fight.

Row down a river.
9 What is the major conflict of the poem?

Death does not care about justice

World War Two

Whether or not the young soldier will encounter his death

World War One
10 Which quote best foreshadows the soldier's death?

"Gently and slowly washing life away"

"Shuddering because that evil thing had passed."

"He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped"

"Rain—he could hear it rustling through the dark;"
11 Which is an example of onomatopoeia?

flickered

thudding

trickling

music
12 What collection was this poem published in?

The Old Huntsman and Other Poems

The Daffodil Murderer

Counter-Attack and Other Poems

The War Poems of Sigfried Sassoon
13 What is Sassoon best known for today?

His angry and compassionate anti-war poems

His satires

His novels

His romantic pastoral poetry
14 Which fellow soldier-poet named "The Death Bed" as the "finest poem" in the collection?

Isaac Rosenberg

Rupert Brooke

Robert Graves

Wilfred Owen
15 Which of the following is not a theme in the poem?

Criticizing the Military Establishment

Satirizing military authority

Mortality

Death and Sleep as a Journey
16 Who or what is personified in the poem?

the soldier

death and the soldier's pain

an animal that broke into the ward

death
17 What is personification?

the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.

A comparison between two things that are otherwise unrelated using the words "like" or "as"

The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words

A word or phrase used in a non-literal sense for rhetorical or vivid effect
18 What does water symbolize?

The soldier's acceptance of his death

The fluid state of the soldier's consciousness

Tranquility

Summertime
19 Why are the guns at the end specified as "the"?

They refer to the guns the soldier used in battle

They refer to the conflict of World War II

They refer to the conflict of World War I

There is no reason for the specification
20 Why is death not capitalized in the poem?

Unspecified, but perhaps to suggest a weak sense

Death is capitalized in the poem

Because it is an inanimate process.

Unspecified, but perhaps to suggest a humble sense
21 Where in the poem does Sassoon clarify that the drowsing man is dying?

Never

In the first stanza

In the final line

In the second-to-last stanza
22 Which words become an anaphora?

Light and summer

Water and night

Summer and night

Water and summer
23 Finish this quote: "Lipped by the inward, moonless__"

waves of pain

starless sky

waves of death

night sky
24 What is anaphora?

The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words

A comparison between two things that are otherwise unrelated

The attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.

The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses.
25 Why does the speaker give a false sense of hope that the soldier will live?

To show that there is always hope

To increase the poem's tension by prolonging the death

To cruelly trick the reader

To show that justice prevails when there is hope

The Death Bed

by Siegfried Sassoon

The Death Bed Quiz

The Death Bed Questions and Answers

Study Guide for The Death Bed