2. Chainsaw Versus the Pampas Grass - Simon Armitage Flashcards
1
Q
Summary
A
Chainsaw is described as largely masculine, with a desire to dominate the vulnerable, femimine and fragile pampass grass. Explores nature’s subversion of genderand social constructs as pampass flourishes.
2
Q
Structure
A
- 9 generally regular stanzas, except the description of the pampas grass, which is significantly shorter – lack of importance
- Freedom of structure creates colloquial tone
- Takes form of confessional given frustration
- Assonance and rhyme highlight the physicality and emotional impact of task on speaker
3
Q
‘It seemed an unlikely match’
A
- Anthropomorphism
* Vernacular way of speaking
4
Q
The chainsaw
A
- ‘unplugged’: Powerless literally and metaphorically
- Personified as masculine and violent: ‘Knocking back a quarter-pint’ macho ‘lad’ culture
- ‘Grinding’, ‘bloody desire’, ‘sweet tooth’: Agressive animalistic nature, appetite for destruction after fetid neglect ‘all winter’
- ‘Instant rage’, ‘perfect disregard’: Characteristics of a psychopath, sexual misconduct of man
- Military: ‘powder froma keg’, ‘gunned the trigger’
- ‘juices’, ‘oozed’: Sibilance - sinister temptation
5
Q
The speaker
A
- ‘I let it flare’: The speaker is in peril, succombs to its power vs. displacing his own emotion vs. a game
- ‘lifted it into the sun’: Becomes its priest
- ‘Wanting to finish things off’: Violent tendencies reside in the man, not the machine
6
Q
Man vs. Nature
A
- ‘wouldn’t be dug’: Resilience of nature demonstrates friction between man and nature
- ‘like the midday moon’: Chainsaw is out of place with nature
- ‘lie cutting at water’: Disrupting purity and peacefulness of nature
7
Q
Class system
A
Chainsaw
•’gunned’, ‘gulped’, knocked back’, ‘spat’
Pampas Grass
•’ludicrous’, ‘plumes’
8
Q
Gender
A
• Water imagery represents feminity
