What exactly is sarcasm? Sarcasm is the “use of irony to
mock or convey contempt”. In the poem “Base Details” by Siegfried Sassoon, the
speaker uses a sarcastic tone to reveal the poem’s main idea that the Majors’ indifference
leads their troops to death. In the poem, the speaker describes himself as if he
were a Major. The narrator believes that he would have a “puffy, petulant face”
and would spend his time “guzzling and gulping in the best hotel”. Also, the
narrator believes that as the Major’s read the Roll of Honor, they would make comments
like “Poor young chap” and “Yes, we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap”, thus
revealing that the officers do not seem concerned about the loss of soldiers’
lives but more about their own lives.
Along with sarcasm, the rhyme scheme of this poem also helped
convey contempt. This poem followed an ABABCDCDEE rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme
helps express the main points of the poem. One of these points being that the
speaker sees the irony in the fact that the officers send the soldiers to die
in battle, but they themselves stay behind the lines and focus on pampering
themselves with extravagance. The narrator uses his diction to convey this
contempt. The speaker pictures the majors as puffy-faced because he pictures
them “guzzling and gulping”, which implies that they are fat and out of shape
from eating and drinking too much. He also refers to them as “petulant”, a word
often used to describe a spoiled child. Meanwhile, the soldiers are described
as “glum heroes”, which allude to the soldier’s sadness because of the
situation they were in. The speaker also criticizes the Majors by portraying
them as uncaring when they hear the news of the dead soldiers. They refer to
the battle in which many soldiers die as “a scrap”, and express concern only
because they knew the father.
The speaker’s main goal was to show the Majors for their
true selves and emphasize the mistreatment that was occurring to the soldiers.
By doing this, the reader can understand the speaker’s attitude towards war. The
speaker was expressing sentiment for anti-war because he felt as though it was wrong
to have some people who participated in war benefit at the expense of the others
who also participated in war. Sassoon gets this idea across by using sarcasm and the rhyme scheme of this poem.
