After reading the poems for class tomorrow, the one that stood out to me the most was “The Kiss,” so I wanted to offer my thoughts and my (perhaps?) reach of an analysis. I was particularly struck by Sassoon’s language when describing “Sister Steel.” He gives the weapon very feminine qualities, and at times the poem reads almost sexual. For example, he says she “glitters naked, cold and fair,” romanticizing the weapon itself. He even compares her impact on an enemy soldier to a “kiss.”

What I found interesting is that this language highlights not just the soldier’s practical relationship with his weapon, but also the subconscious ties and dependencies that form around it. There’s a sort of intimacy here: the weapon protects the soldier more reliably than any human could, yet it does so by harming and killing others. That raises a moral question: how “good” can this protection be if it requires someone else’s death, if the weapon is both a guardian and a source of death?

I think feminizing the weapon almost emphasizes how aware the soldier is of this unsettling relationship. It’s almost as if he feels seduced by the weapon’s power—drawn in by its “beauty” or reliability, yet also aware that it is ultimately lethal. In that sense, the speaker shifts some of the blame onto the weapon itself, as though it perpetuates the very system of violence he hates but must participate in to survive. It’s also significant that this weapon is imagined as female, tapping into stereotypes of women as deceptive or dangerously alluring. And I know he imagines one of the weapons as male too, but it’s interesting that Sassoon portrays that weapon as seeking praise from him (“And splits a skull to win my praise”), while Sister Steel reads as far more merciless and almost cunning, or at least that’s how she seems to me. This may be a reach, but I thought I’d share in case anyone had similar (or even entirely different) thoughts!