What Reward? by Winifred M. Letts (AQA A-Level English Literature A): Revision Notes

What Reward? by Winifred M. Letts

Overview

This powerful anti-war poem was written around 1916-17 during the height of World War One's psychological crisis. Winifred M. Letts composed it whilst working as a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) nurse at Manchester Base Hospital, where she cared for shell-shocked soldiers returning from the Somme offensive. The poem appeared posthumously in her 1917 collection The Spires of Oxford and Other Poems and was later included in Catherine Reilly's influential 1981 anthology Scars Upon My Heart, which recovered women's voices from the Great War.

Unlike the patriotic verse common in early war poetry, 'What Reward?' represents Letts' shift towards ironic protest. The poem condemns society's neglect of soldiers suffering from psychological trauma whilst it celebrated those with visible, physical injuries. Through her nursing experience, Letts witnessed what she called 'brain bemused' patients—men whose minds had been shattered by the horrors of trench warfare—and she transformed these observations into a searing critique of how these invisible casualties were treated.

Historical and biographical context

Winifred M. Letts and VAD nursing

Winifred M. Letts (1882-1972) was an Irish-born writer educated in Bromley who served as a VAD nurse during some of the war's bloodiest campaigns. The 1916 Battle of the Somme produced approximately 420,000 British casualties, and many survivors arrived at Manchester Base Hospital suffering from what was then called 'shell shock'—a term for the psychological trauma we would now recognise as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Shell shock and societal attitudes

By 1918, approximately 80,000 British soldiers had been diagnosed with shell shock. The condition manifested in various symptoms including tremors, nightmares, paralysis, and the kind of mental disorientation Letts describes as being 'brain bemused and dim'. However, the military and society at large often viewed these symptoms with suspicion rather than sympathy.

The term 'war neurosis' was influenced by Freudian psychology and suggested that psychological breakdown indicated personal weakness rather than legitimate injury. This attitude had devastating consequences:

Evolution of Letts' poetry

Letts' early work, including Hallows Eve (1916), contained romantic imagery such as 'Oxford spires'. However, her hospital experience fundamentally changed her poetic voice. 'What Reward?' marks her transformation into a poet of ironic protest, questioning the propaganda that glorified 'glorious' deaths whilst ignoring the 'precious wits' lost to psychological trauma.

This evolution positioned Letts within what feminist scholars call women's 'oppositional tradition' in war poetry—a counter-narrative to the canonical trench poets like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. Whilst male poets wrote from the front lines, female poets like Letts wrote from the hospital wards, offering a different but equally authentic perspective on war's devastation. Her work anticipates the pacifist poetry of the 1920s and anti-war songs like Tommy's Tunes (1922).

Themes

Neglect of psychological casualties

The central argument of Letts' poem is that society has failed soldiers who suffered mental rather than physical injuries. Through a series of rhetorical questions, the speaker demands recognition for 'he who gave his precious wits'—a soldier whose sacrifice receives no acknowledgement or reward.

The poem contrasts three types of casualties:

• Those who 'gave your life' (the dead, who are honoured as heroes)
• Those who lost 'a limb' (amputees, who receive medals and public sympathy)
• The shell-shocked soldier who lost his mind (dismissed as a 'poor babbler')

The repetition of the question 'Say, what reward for him?' emphasises the injustice of this hierarchy. Whilst physical sacrifice is tangible and therefore valorised, the loss of mental capacity remains invisible and therefore unrecognised. The poem exposes this institutional failure: medals are awarded to amputees, but only scorn awaits those diagnosed as neurasthenics (people suffering from nervous exhaustion or mental breakdown).

Hierarchy of sacrifice and glory

Letts constructs a powerful binary contrast between honoured and dishonoured sacrifice. The poem's structure presents this hierarchy explicitly:

He is dismissed as 'flotsam of battle'—debris washed up and abandoned, unworthy of the 'Empire's thanks'.

This metaphor of flotsam is particularly significant. It suggests that these soldiers are seen as waste products of war, floating wreckage rather than human beings deserving care and recognition. The term 'battle' itself becomes ironic when applied to those whose injuries came not from enemy action but from the psychological impact of industrial warfare.

The poem indicts the cultural bias that values only certain types of sacrifice. Heroic death is mourned; survival with mental trauma is shameful. This hierarchy reveals society's discomfort with psychological injury, which challenges heroic narratives of war and exposes the reality of its devastating psychological impact.

Pity and divine indictment

The poem's emotional crescendo arrives with its apostrophe to God:

O God, for such a sacrifice / Say, what reward for him?

This direct address to the divine transforms the poem from social critique into theological questioning. By appealing to God, the speaker suggests that if human society cannot provide justice for these casualties, perhaps divine intervention is the only remaining hope.

The reference to 'chin sunk on his breast' evokes a posture of defeat and exhaustion. This physical detail—likely drawn from Letts' observations of actual patients—creates a visceral image of collapse. The soldier cannot even hold his head up, weighted down by psychological trauma.

The speaker's voice here blends empathetic rage with maternal compassion. As a nurse who cared for these 'babblers', Letts channels her frustration at a system that offers these men no hope, no pension, no recognition—only isolation and the futile promise of 'rest' when they are still living and suffering. The divine appeal demands cosmic justice where earthly justice has failed.

Gendered witness to trauma

An important dimension of this poem is its perspective as female testimony to war's psychological toll. Letts' position as a VAD nurse gave her intimate access to casualties that most civilians never witnessed. Her 'gaze' as a carer humanises the 'poor babbler' in ways that military reports and propaganda could not.

The poem contributes to what scholars recognise as women's unique contribution to WWI literature. Whilst male poets like Owen wrote from the trenches, female poets wrote from the hospitals and home front, documenting a different but equally authentic experience of war's devastation. The phrase 'scars upon my heart'—which became the title of Reilly's anthology—suggests that witnesses to trauma carry their own psychological wounds.

The poem thus broadens war's toll beyond the trenches, insisting that the home front—particularly the hospitals where damaged men languished—was also a site of war's horror. Women's witnessing of this suffering gave them both the right and the responsibility to speak out against society's failure to recognise psychological casualties.

Literary techniques

Structure and form

'What Reward?' is composed of three quatrains (four-line stanzas) following a ballad quatrain structure with an ABCB rhyme scheme and iambic tetrameter (four stressed beats per line). This traditional form is associated with folk songs and narrative poetry, particularly laments and tales of tragedy.

However, Letts subverts this conventional structure through her use of rhetorical questions. The repeated query 'Say, what reward for him?' interrupts the expected narrative flow of a ballad, transforming the poem from storytelling into accusation. This question appears multiple times, building in intensity towards the final divine plea.

The poem builds to a crescendo in its final stanza with the apostrophe to God, moving from observation to emotional outcry. This structural progression—from presenting the problem to demanding divine justice—creates dramatic tension and moral urgency.

Imagery and sensory language

Letts employs visceral hospital imagery drawn from her direct observations. The repeated phrase 'chin sunk on his breast' creates a powerful visual image of physical collapse that represents psychological defeat. This is not a soldier standing proud despite injury, but a broken figure unable even to lift his head.

The description 'brain bemused and dim' combines medical language with poetic effect. 'Bemused' suggests confusion and disorientation, whilst 'dim' implies that the soldier's mental light has been extinguished or reduced to a faint glow. Together, these adjectives capture the fog of shell shock—the inability to think clearly or function normally.

References to 'precious wits' creates tactile contrast with the metallic imagery of military honours and prosthetic limbs given to amputees. Mental capacity is presented as a treasure that, once lost, cannot be replaced—yet it receives no compensation or recognition.

The implied 'crimson gloom' mentioned in the source material suggests the blood-soaked atmosphere of field hospitals where these men languished. This combines colour imagery (crimson = blood and violence) with darkness (gloom = psychological shadow and despair).

Sound devices and rhythm

The repetition of 'Say, what reward for him?' functions as a tolling bell—an insistent accusation that demands response. This anaphoric structure (repeated opening) creates a ritualistic quality, like a prayer or formal petition for justice.

Sibilance (repeated 's' sounds) appears in phrases like 'precious... sacrifice', creating a soft, almost consoling sound that contrasts ironically with the harsh reality being described. This gentle sound pattern makes the violence of the content even more shocking.

The halting rhythm created by punctuation and caesurae disrupts the expected flow of iambic tetrameter:

With chin sunk on his breast

This broken rhythm echoes the stupor of shell-shocked patients—their fragmented thoughts and inability to communicate coherently. The poem's form thus reinforces its content through prosodic (sound and rhythm) choices.

Figurative language

The central metaphor equates shell-shocked soldiers with 'flotsam'—floating debris abandoned after a storm. This degrading comparison reveals society's attitude: these men are waste products rather than honoured casualties. The parallel metaphor of 'babbler' reduces eloquent human beings to incoherent noise, reflecting how psychological trauma was misunderstood and dismissed.

The poem's greatest irony lies in its treatment of sacrifice itself. The phrase 'gave his precious wits' presents mental breakdown as an intentional gift—ultimate sacrifice that surpasses even death. Yet this 'gift' remains 'unthanked' and unrewarded. The irony exposes society's hypocrisy in celebrating some sacrifices whilst ignoring others.

Tone and diction

The poem's tone shifts dramatically from declarative statements about sacrifice:

You gave your life, boy

To anguished questioning:

O God

This progression from statement to plea mirrors the speaker's growing desperation as she confronts the impossibility of justice for psychological casualties.

The colloquial address 'boy' suggests maternal or sisterly concern—the voice of a nurse speaking to her patient with familiar affection. This intimate diction contrasts with the clinical language of 'bemused'—a medical term that creates emotional distance. The combination of these registers (informal and formal, emotional and clinical) reflects the nurse's dual role as both carer and professional witness.

The speaker's voice blends maternal compassion with moral outrage. The pity expressed for the 'poor babbler' coexists with anger at the system that abandons him. This emotional complexity gives the poem its power—it is both tender and furious, acknowledging individual suffering whilst condemning societal failure.

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