The Death Bed Quizzes

The Death Bed Quiz

1 Which best describes the poem's speaker?
Omniscient, third-person; addresses the reader using second-person

Omniscient, third-person; addresses the soldier using second-person

Unidentified, third-person

All-knowing, first-person, addresses the reader using second-person
2 Describe the form.
Six stanzas composed of different lengths

Seven sextets

Six sextets

Seven stanzas composed of different lengths
3 What senses are engaged in this poem?
Visual

Auditory, gustatory, olfactory

Visual, tactile, auditory

All senses
4 Which of the following is not a metaphor in the poem?
"in the wings of sleep"

"his mortal shore / Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death"

Water

"silence heaped / Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls"
5 Which best describes a metaphor?
A comparison between two things that are otherwise unrelated using the words "like" or "as"

A description of one thing by way of another, unrelated thing

A word or phrase used in a non-literal sense for rhetorical or vivid effec

The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words
6 Which is not an example of alliteration?
"Silence and safety"

"That soak the woods; not the harsh rain"

"Light many lamps and gather round his bed. / Lend him your...will to live"

"And there was silence in the summer night; / Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep"
7 What is alliteration?
The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words

A comparison between two things that are otherwise unrelated

A comparison between two things that are otherwise unrelated using the words "like" or "as"

A word or phrase used in a non-literal sense for rhetorical or vivid effect
8 What is the reader implored to do?
Row down a river.

Enlist and fight.

Care for the dying soldier's physical and energetic needs.

Protest the war by writing letters.
9 What is the major conflict of the poem?
Whether or not the young soldier will encounter his death

World War One

World War Two

Death does not care about justice
10 Which quote best foreshadows the soldier's death?
"Rain—he could hear it rustling through the dark;"

"Gently and slowly washing life away"

"He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped"

"Shuddering because that evil thing had passed."
11 Which is an example of onomatopoeia?
flickered

music

thudding

trickling
12 What collection was this poem published in?
Counter-Attack and Other Poems

The War Poems of Sigfried Sassoon

The Old Huntsman and Other Poems

The Daffodil Murderer
13 What is Sassoon best known for today?
His satires

His romantic pastoral poetry

His angry and compassionate anti-war poems

His novels
14 Which fellow soldier-poet named "The Death Bed" as the "finest poem" in the collection?
Robert Graves

Rupert Brooke

Isaac Rosenberg

Wilfred Owen
15 Which of the following is not a theme in the poem?
Criticizing the Military Establishment

Death and Sleep as a Journey

Satirizing military authority

Mortality
16 Who or what is personified in the poem?
death and the soldier's pain

the soldier

death

an animal that broke into the ward
17 What is personification?
A comparison between two things that are otherwise unrelated using the words "like" or "as"

The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words

the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.

A word or phrase used in a non-literal sense for rhetorical or vivid effect
18 What does water symbolize?
The fluid state of the soldier's consciousness

Tranquility

The soldier's acceptance of his death

Summertime
19 Why are the guns at the end specified as "the"?
They refer to the guns the soldier used in battle

There is no reason for the specification

They refer to the conflict of World War II

They refer to the conflict of World War I
20 Why is death not capitalized in the poem?
Unspecified, but perhaps to suggest a weak sense

Unspecified, but perhaps to suggest a humble sense

Death is capitalized in the poem

Because it is an inanimate process.
21 Where in the poem does Sassoon clarify that the drowsing man is dying?
Never

In the final line

In the second-to-last stanza

In the first stanza
22 Which words become an anaphora?
Water and night

Light and summer

Summer and night

Water and summer
23 Finish this quote: "Lipped by the inward, moonless__"
waves of pain

waves of death

night sky

starless sky
24 What is anaphora?
The attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.

A comparison between two things that are otherwise unrelated

The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words

The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses.
25 Why does the speaker give a false sense of hope that the soldier will live?
To show that justice prevails when there is hope

To cruelly trick the reader

To increase the poem's tension by prolonging the death

To show that there is always hope

The Death Bed Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Death Bed is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Ask Your Own Question

Study Guide for The Death Bed

The Death Bed study guide contains a biography of Siegfried Sassoon, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

Read the Study Guide for The Death Bed…