What is the point of view in the poem “The Hero,” by Siegfried Sassoon?
Limited omniscient. The point of view has access to the inner thoughts of the Brother Officer, but not to the thoughts of Jack’s mother. The last sentence comes directly from Sassoon, I think, and not from the Brother Officer’s thoughts. It’s a summary estimation that (to me) doesn’t seem likely to issue from the more-or-less established character of the Brother Officer. Officers who make judgments of the sort he makes–Jack was thoroughly judged, in accordance with ‘the ethics of the trenches’–such officers do care, but not about the concerns Sassoon has. But that’s my tentative critical judgment, and I am uneasy about it. Sassoon might have meant to credit the B. O. with another layer of reflective depth; he’s too good a poet to create cardboard tragedy.
