I am Lucky

We are lucky.

      If we compare ourselves to lottery winners, we might not appear to be lucky. Certainly, most of us might not win the lottery once, not even a raffle ticket. However, if we compare our life with those who live in developing countries, without a clean source of water and basic necessities. We are definitely lucky.

      Through juxtaposition, our values and gains can be highlighted with others’. In a similar way, Siegfried Sassoon utilizes juxtaposition to criticize the contrast treatment and the outcomes between the privileged generals and the ordinary soldiers in a war.

       In the beginning of the poem, the speaker reveals that he had “speed glum [soldiers] up the line of death” (3). Following this line, the speaker reveals that the authority figure stays in the best hotel while the soldier fought in the war. The situation between the soldier and the authority figure is extremely different. One lives between life and death while the other not only lives in a hotel, but the best one as well. The rank between the speaker and the solders contributes to this dichotomy, in which only the authority figure have the power to send soldiers to the war. Thus, it is the generals or any soldiers of a high ranking who live in the best hotel while the soldiers try to survive. The juxtaposition of the extreme situations of ordinary solders and privileged general highlight inequality within the army.  

   Toward the end of the poem, another difference between the soldiers and the general arises again. The speaker states, “When the war is done and youth stone dead,/ I’d toddle safely home and die-in bed” (9-10). The speaker utilizes forms of die to emphasize the various interpretation of death. Dead is used as an adjective to describe the death of the soldier in the war while the speakers utilizes die to describe the generals’ current action. What makes the “death” more different is the location of their death. The soldiers died in the war with wounds. On the other hand, the generals die in their cozy bed. Not to mention that the authority figures toddle to their homes, walking casually, instead of walking home with worries about the war. The juxtaposition, along with diction represents the speaker’s attitude toward warfare.

        Moreover, the speaker’s attitude intensifies at the end of the poem, in which he states,” Yes, we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap” (8) Yes what? Why we? The speaker utilizes “we” to emphasize the combined effort with the soldiers in the war that he did not directly participate. What is lost anyways? The manpower that was manipulated by the privileged generals or the war overall? The speaker’s sarcastic tone reflects his attitude on the topic-abhor by the privileged generals who enjoy the best hotel while the soldiers are fighting for glory and their lives.

       Throughout the poems, the speaker contrasts both subjects to highlight and criticize the unequal treatments and outcomes of a privileged general and ordinary soldiers. Nevertheless, laziness will always remain in humanity, as well as social class. In our society, many of the privileged people are similar to the generals who in the poem and are often exempt from laborious jobs while many of the commoners will share a similar experience with the soldiers who were sent to the line of death. For now, I am still lucky!