Fictional Adaptation - The Death Bed Intro

In this unit we have to take one of 5 poems given to us and adapt it into a film. Out of the 5 poems I chose to adapt "The Death Bed" by Siegfried Sassoon.

I did some research on the background of the poem and poet and found that, Sassoon was born into a very rich family in 1886 and had an extremely comfortable early life. He studied at Cambridge and went hunting in his spear time, along with his passion of writing poetry. He was sent to war and revived a Military cross during his service. He was very reckless during the war, so much that he earned the title of "Mad Jack". After he returned from the war he became disillusion and wrote declaration against the war and called for a negotated peace risking court martial, he was sent to a war hospital. He survived the war and went on to publish "The Death Bed" in 1916. The poem is about a dying soldier who moves in and out of consciousness from the battle field to the hospital. The weather frequently reminded him of the ordeal and the state he was in. Sassoon uses the symbolism of the waves of the water to show the border between life and death, and his life being washed away. He continues to use symbolism through the pain which the soldier is experiencing with a 'prowling beast' gripping and tearing at his energy and soul and dreams. These are all constant torture and torment from death before it actually takes him onto the other side. 

(http://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/the-death-bed/)

I decided to do this poem because most war stories are about a brave soldier who does heroic things and survives the war and live. A bit too much fairy tale, so I like this poem because it's about the massive percent of soldiers who went to war and didn't come back and it shows some realism and truth to the war which is death. Also I like that the soldier goes through different states before he dies. Also I like the use of symbolism in the poem to describe the state of the soldier and pain he's going through.