I wandered lonely as a cloud

In the poem Glory of Women Sassoon finds fault with women’s behaviour during World War one. Do the women in Cannan’s poem make the same mistakes as the women Sassoon describes? 700 – 1000

Both of the poems are about World War one, and describe the author’s thought on how women fit in the war. Sassoon writes very negatively about women, while Cannan is very positive. There are many reasons for this. Keep in mind that Sassoon is a man, who fought in the war and got wounded and treated in a hospital. Cannan is a woman and was a nurse at Rouen in World War one. Therefore Cannan is much more positive towards women in her poem than Sassoon is in his.

If we first take a look at Sassoon’s poem, we see that it is written in a sarcastic way. He shows the difference between men and women: The women could stay home and do whatever they want, and men were obliged to put their lives at risk to fight in the war. In the first few lines he states that women only care about the men when they are home and are able to brag about them, but as soon as they leave it is like they don’t even exist. ‘You love us when we’re heroes, home on leave, or wounded in a mentionable place.’ We can see this thought throughout the poem. He says women listen to the man’s stories as if they’re unreal: ‘You listen with delight, by tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled.’ However Sassoon knows that the war is not a fairy tale or exciting story, for him it is very realistic and horrific. The women don’t understand that it might be too much for the soldier and they could ‘retire’. Over all Sassoon tries to tell us that women have absolutely no idea what happens during such a war, they only listen to the heroic stories.

Now, Cannan is much more positive towards women during the war in her poem. She herself was a nurse at Rouen, and saw with her own eyes what happened. She says positive stuff, but also some negative stuff. The first part is an example of a happy view on the war: ‘Early morning over Rouen, hopeful, high, courageous morning, and the laughter of adventure and the steepness of the stair, and the dawn across the river, and the wind across the bridges, and the empty littered station, and the tired people there.’ Another example of this would be the sentence: ‘All the youth and pride of England from the ends of all the earth.’ She seems to loop upon the war very positively. But in her poem she also remember the Aid post and Red cross train: Can I forget the passage from the cool white-bedded Aid Post past the long sun-blistered coaches of the khaki Red Cross train to the truck train full of wounded, and the weariness and laughter and “Good-bye, and thank you, Sister”, and the empty yards again?’ At the very end of the poem she says: ‘My heart goes out to Rouen, Rouen all the world away.’ In this sentence Rouen has a double entendre, when you take a look at the pronunciation. She thinks about Rouen all the time, and about how it will ruin the whole world. She is perfectly aware of the horrors of the story, but does see the positive stuff and helps out the soldiers when they’re wounded instead of just listening to their stories.