Siegfried Sassoon Character Analysis in Regeneration

Siegfried Sassoon is technically in the antagonist’s role, though he is still very much a hero of the story and Rivers’s friend. Sassoon is a decorated Second Lieutenant in the British army who is notably brave and revered by his troops. However, Sassoon’s witness of horror and needless atrocities in war lead him to write an anti-war protest declaration, which results in his getting sent to Craiglockhart to be determined if he is insane, though he was hoping to be court-martialed instead and become an anti-war martyr. At Craiglockhart, Sassoon forms a close friendship with Rivers and comes to view him as the father figure he never had as a child, even though Rivers’s stated goal is to convince Sassoon to abandon his protest and return to war. Sassoon plays cricket and hunts, and is a published poet and art lover. Sassoon is also a homosexual, which he admits only to Rivers and his friend Robert Graves, and struggles with society’s embrace of male relationships in the form of camaraderie but outright rejection of male relationships in the form of sexuality, which he sees as not altogether different from each other. Rivers shares this consternation, and their conversations around the issue suggest society’s irony and hypocrisy in its attitudes towards male relationships. Although initially Sassoon never intended to return to combat, Rivers observes that he has something of a death wish and hates the thought of his friends fighting and dying while he sits safely in the hospital. When Sassoon begins hallucinating about men who died in war, watching him at the hospital, the guilt becomes too much, and he ultimately agrees to return to combat, even though he never withdraws his declaration that the war should be over.

Siegfried Sassoon Quotes in Regeneration

The Regeneration quotes below are all either spoken by Siegfried Sassoon or refer to Siegfried Sassoon. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

Masculinity, Expectations, and Psychological Health Theme Icon

I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.

Related Characters: Siegfried Sassoon (speaker)

Page Number and Citation: 3

Explanation and Analysis:

“What’s an ‘unnecessary risk’ anyway? The maddest thing I ever did was done under orders.”

Related Characters: Siegfried Sassoon (speaker), William Rivers

Page Number and Citation: 12

Explanation and Analysis:

“I mean, there was the riding, hunting, cricketing me, and then there was the…other side…that was interested in poetry and music, and things like that. And I didn’t seem able to…” He laced his fingers. “Knot them together.”

Related Characters: Siegfried Sassoon (speaker), William Rivers

Page Number and Citation: 35

Explanation and Analysis:

[Sassoon] was more corruptible than that. A few days of safety, and all the clear spirit of the trenches was gone. It was still, after all these weeks, pure joy to go to bed in white sheets and know that he would wake.

Related Characters: Siegfried Sassoon

Page Number and Citation: 44

Explanation and Analysis:

“If I were going to call myself a Christian, I’d have to call myself a pacifist as well. I don’t think it’s possible to call yourself a C-Christian and… j-just leave out the awkward bits.”

Related Characters: Siegfried Sassoon, William Rivers, Wilfred Owen

Page Number and Citation: 83

Explanation and Analysis:

Everywhere saurian heads and necks peered out of winged armchairs, looking at the young man [Sassoon] with the automatic approval his uniform evoked, and then—or was he perhaps being oversensitive?—with a slight ambivalence, a growing doubt, as they worked out what they blue badge on his tunic meant.

Related Characters: Siegfried Sassoon, William Rivers

Page Number and Citation: 113

Explanation and Analysis:

“It makes it difficult to go on, you know. When things like this keep happening to people you know and and …love. To go on with the protest, I mean.”

Related Characters: Siegfried Sassoon (speaker), William Rivers

Page Number and Citation: 118

Explanation and Analysis:

[Sassoon had] joked once or twice to Rivers about being his father confessor, but only now, faced with this second abandonment, did he realize how completely Rivers had come to take his father’s place. Well, that didn’t matter, did it? After all, if it came to substitute fathers, he might do a lot worse.

Related Characters: Siegfried Sassoon, William Rivers

Page Number and Citation: 145

Explanation and Analysis:

The bargain, Rivers thought, looking at Abraham and Isaac. The one on which all patriarchal societies are founded. If you, who are young and strong, will obey me, who am old and weak, even to the extent of being prepared to sacrifice your life, then in the course of time you will peacefully inherit, and be able to exact the same obedience from your sons.

Related Characters: William Rivers, Siegfried Sassoon

Page Number and Citation: 149

Explanation and Analysis:

“It’s only fair to tell you that…since that happened my affections have been running in more normal channels. I’ve been writing to a girl called Nancy Nicholson. I really think you’ll like her. She’s great fun. The…the only reason I’m telling you this is…I’d hate you to have any misconceptions. About me. I’d hate you to think I was homosexual even in thought. Even if it went no further.”

Related Characters: Robert Graves (speaker), Siegfried Sassoon

Page Number and Citation: 199

Explanation and Analysis:

Siegfried Sassoon Character Timeline in Regeneration

The timeline below shows where the character Siegfried Sassoon appears in Regeneration. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

In a statement titled “Finished with the War: A Soldier’s Declaration,” Siegfried Sassoon announces that, although he is a soldier, he is done fighting. He recognizes that the... (full context)

...discuss the nature of the man who wrote it. Rivers seems sympathetic to the statement. Sassoon is coming to Rivers to be treated for shell shock, and Bryce reveals that the... (full context)

Elsewhere, Sassoon boards a train, bound for Craiglockhart, which begins to roll down the platform. He looks... (full context)

Rivers sits in his office, reading an honorable citation given to Sassoon for single-handedly recovering the wounded from a dangerous battlefield. In the report, Sassoon threw the... (full context)

Rivers and Sassoon take tea together in Rivers’s office, and Rivers mentions that Captain Graves will join them... (full context)

They speak briefly about Sassoon’s nightmares and hallucinations many months ago about corpses crawling across the ground, though Rivers does... (full context)

When Rivers presses, Sassoon admits that the only hatred he feels now is towards civilians, since they don’t understand... (full context)

At dinner, Rivers and Bryce talk about Sassoon. Rivers cannot yet pinpoint anything wrong with the man and quite enjoyed meeting him. At... (full context)

Sassoon meets Graves outside and shows him to his guest room, remarking that he hates it... (full context)

Graves leaves, and Rivers reads through three poems that Sassoon gave to him, which he wrote while he was recovering from an injury in an... (full context)

Early in the morning, Graves and Sassoon go swimming together in the hospital pool, roughhousing and studying each others’ recent scars—Sassoon’s through... (full context)

Rivers meets with Sassoon later that morning, who seems in bright enough spirits, but when Sassoon jokes about being... (full context)

Sassoon goes on to explain that he went to Cambridge, but felt he couldn’t keep up... (full context)

Graves and Sassoon sit together in a pub, while Graves expresses his annoyance that Sassoon looks down on... (full context)

...who so often succumb to night terrors and screaming. As he bathes, he thinks of Sassoon’s declaration that supporting the war is a selfish action, but he imagines if that were... (full context)

Rivers meets with Sassoon and they discuss the young officer’s interactions with pacifism. Despite what Graves insisted, Sassoon doesn’t... (full context)

Sassoon awakes to screaming and the sound of running footsteps down the hall. He stands and... (full context)

Rivers meets with Sassoon in his office. Sassoon’s declaration has made the paper, but he’d rather talk about the... (full context)

Rivers writes his report on Sassoon, describing how he joined the army in 1914 and rose through the ranks, sustaining several... (full context)

...he is going to see his mother. Brock, another officer, prompts Rivers to speak about Sassoon, since his name was in the paper this week. Rivers announces that he is continuing... (full context)

While Sassoon is in his room, cleaning his golf clubs, a young man nervously enters, carrying 5... (full context)

They chat about the war and religion—Sassoon is a skeptic, while Owen wants to be a Christian but feels he can’t be... (full context)

In the golf club’s bar, Anderson mumbles an apology to Sassoon; when he lost the game, he’d been so enraged that he’d threatened to hit Sassoon... (full context)

Sassoon sits at a table in the Conservative Club, waiting to meet Rivers for dinner. Though... (full context)

Rivers arrives, and as Sassoon pores over the menu, Rivers reflects that his life would be simpler if the protestor... (full context)

...an old man’s as he watches his friends and contemporaries die one after another. With Sassoon’s love for his men and desire to act with integrity and courage, Rivers realizes it... (full context)

Owen pays another visit to Sassoon and they chat amiably about poetry while Sassoon complains about how much Rivers can push... (full context)

Sassoon notes that Rivers is not at dinner again, nor has he been for several days,... (full context)

Sassoon’s palms sweat and his heart pounds, even though this hallucination was far more dignified and... (full context)

...invited him to visit for a few days, and he has a half-finished letter for Sassoon waiting, as well. He spends the evening sitting in an armchair by the fireplace and... (full context)

Rivers looks at the unfinished letter to Sassoon on the table. All he’d managed to do thus far was talk about the weather,... (full context)

In Craiglockhart, Sassoon sits with Owen as they workshop another of his poems. As they do, Sassoon notes... (full context)

...When they pass a war hospital full of wounded soldiers, Ruth remarks that she thinks Sassoon and his declaration are right; she agrees wholeheartedly with it. Rivers asks if that means... (full context)

When Rivers arrives back at Craiglockhart, he finds several patients including Sassoon playing soccer in a ward hallway with a visitor’s balled up hat, taken from a... (full context)

Later, Sassoon tells Rivers about his new hallucination of the man in his room and the tapping... (full context)

Graves visits Craiglockhart, joining Sassoon at the Conservative Club for dinner. They chat about golf and about Owen—Graves does not... (full context)

Changing the subject, Graves tells Sassoon that one of his close friends was recently arrested for “soliciting.” Sassoon expresses sincere sympathies,... (full context)

The night before Sassoon’s board examination, Rivers visits him in his room. Sassoon is visibly upset and dispirited, and... (full context)

With tension growing, Rivers encourages Sassoon to keep his head down so someone doesn’t use his sexuality to discredit or slander... (full context)

...be rejected, to survive, and he pities the young man. Outside in the waiting room, Sassoon sits impatiently. The board is over an hour behind schedule and he has a dinner... (full context)

After several more examinations—none of them Sassoon’s—Rivers visits Prior in his room. The young man’s swollen eyes indicate that he’s been crying.... (full context)

Rivers, eating dinner with the other officers, is restless. He worries that Sassoon has actually deserted, in which case he will be asked to help certify Sassoon as... (full context)

Owen and Sassoon meet together in the Conservative Club one last time before Owen ships out. They spend... (full context)

On his last day, Rivers visits Sassoon, who sits on the floor in the middle of his room, staring at the fire,... (full context)

The day before Rivers is due back at Craiglockhart for Sassoon’s examination board, he is invited to visit the National Hospital in Queen’s Square by Dr.... (full context)

...through the National Hospital. He sees the man with the deformed back, who starts speaking Sassoon’s anti-war declaration. The dream changes, and Rivers is in the operating room, trying to force... (full context)

...analyzing the dream, which feels pointedly self-accusatory. The deformed man seems to him to represent Sassoon and his declaration, but he wonders about the patient in the chair. When he realizes... (full context)

...is insane; Rivers is the exact opposite of Yealland both in method and temperament, and Sassoon is making his own decision. Rivers can’t help feeling that Sassoon, by his return to... (full context)

...still demands he return to medicine in spite of his fear of blood. Rivers visits Sassoon, who has finished writing a book, and mentions that Owen writes him “distinctly effusive letters”... (full context)

During Sassoon’s board, Rivers worries that Bryce’s replacement may cause disruption, since he asks if Sassoon will... (full context)

Sassoon comes to say goodbye to Rivers, informing him that he’ll spend a few days in... (full context)

...strange that he, who changes minds for a living, should be changed by a patient, Sassoon, who was completely ignorant of the fact. Though Rivers has always been deeply conservative, “the... (full context)

Regeneration

Siegfried Sassoon Character Analysis

Siegfried Sassoon Quotes in Regeneration

Chapter 1 Quotes

Chapter 2 Quotes

Chapter 4 Quotes

Chapter 5 Quotes

Chapter 8 Quotes

Chapter 10 Quotes

Chapter 13 Quotes

Chapter 14 Quotes

Chapter 17 Quotes

Siegfried Sassoon Character Timeline in Regeneration