A Minor Role - Fanthorpe

Question 1

Opening statement

Answer 1

A minor role is a reflection on the role the poet has been forced to play within society due to her illness

Question 2

Tone

Answer 2

Overly sardonic

- flashes of innate desire to live and thrive

Question 3

Reference to

Answer 3

Oedipus Rex

- Shakespeare’s ‘as you like it’ - all the worlds a stage

Question 4

Structure

Answer 4

6 unequal stanzas, irregular line length

- free verse

Question 5

Truncated lines

Answer 5

Sometimes enhanced and sometimes broken into pieces - caesuras bring a chaotic rhythm
- Fanthorpe freely speaking, reflection of thought process

Question 6

Differing stanza le by the

Answer 6

Differing roles one play in society - strange form - reflection of erratic mindset

Question 7

Isolation

Answer 7

‘Formula’ for coping is through maintaining an illusion

Question 8

Extended metaphor

Answer 8

Of theatre and performance

‘Getting on, getting better’ - script like italics

Question 9

Use of imperatives

Answer 9

‘Find’ ‘cancel’ ‘admit’ - speaker trying to impose control in her life, subdue any emotional response she may have to illness

Question 10

Parenthetical phrases

Answer 10

Deeply connected with her own thoughts

Question 11

‘Unwanted sniggers’

Answer 11

Afraid of being judged

Question 12

Asyndetic lists

Answer 12

Need for control in her life while her disease spirals out of control

Question 13

Enjambment

Answer 13

Speed with which the speaker is deteriorating due to their illness

Question 14

Shift in perspective

Answer 14

View in death changes ‘no it wouldn’t!’

• rejects thoughts of suicide or at least giving in
• striking contrast to the lack of passion and the ‘formula’ of the speaker’s thought pattern prior to this point

Question 15

Final line

Answer 15

Gives a newfound sense of hope even in the face of the speaker’s death from her illness

Question 16

Highlights stigma

Answer 16

If serious illness which stems from the speakers own insecurity and fear

Question 17

Speaker feels like she is

Answer 17

Playing the part of the servant in her own life, rather than a main protagonist

Question 18

Tension between

Answer 18

Desire to maintain an illusion and stark reality that the performance is hiding

Question 19

Illusion described

Answer 19

Metaphorically as a ‘monstrous fabric’ - something colossal, fearful perhaps

Question 20

Line breaks

Answer 20

‘Cancel things, tidy things;pretend all’s well’

• gap between illusion and reality given physical form
• painful admission that everything is not fine
• poignancy through the simple, brief poetic line ‘admit it’s not’
• space surrounding line suggests the truth of illness is silencing the speaker

Question 21

Use of lists

Answer 21

Dull monotony of hospital visits - reinforced by repeated -ing verbs

• metaphorical conjugation of ‘misery’ also results in an inevitable list
• items in the lists are separated by a comma or semi- colon - silences become more final and more keenly felt

Question 22

Speaker trying to

Answer 22

Control or repress her real feelings about illness - gaining some consolation from routine

Question 23

Returns to conceit

Answer 23

Of acting and performance

• concludes by rejecting the performance ‘I jettison the spear’
• rejects thoughts if suicide
• dramatic turn