An Easy Passage Flashcards
Total form and structure
Enjambment
-Draws out the tension of the scene
-The first 13 lines of the poem are all one sentence, leaving the reader little chance to stop and catch their breath.
-Keeps things moving, perhaps reflecting the way that the girl’s muscles must stay engaged the entire time she’s up there—there’s no time for her to stop and relax or second-guess her decision.
-The momentum created by all this enjambment is also suggestive of the way in which adolescence progresses into adulthood: at breakneck, whirlwind speed.
Free verse and enjambment
-Continuous verse
-Free spirited
Single paragraph
-Shows the short time frame of adolescence
-A small moment which symbolises adolescence
Present tense
Creates:
-Liminal space, sense of timelessness, uncertainty in the future
-Ongoing transition
-Beginning of a change
Once she is halfway up there, crouched in her bikini
on the porch roof of her family’s house, trembling,
she knows that the one thing she must not do is to think
of the narrow windowsill, the sharp
Half way
-Could symbolise of being physically halfway somewhere
-Could symbolise the halfway point of being between youth and adulthood
,Trembling,
-Caesura emphasises the fear of the child
-Suggests also the physical stress the child’s body is under
House
-The house is a place of familiarity and comfort. It’s linked with family and the security of childhood.
-The house makes her feel stifled and restricted. She doesn’t entirely belong there, because she is no longer just a child.
Must not do is to think
-Can’t take time to pause and make decisions
drop of the stairwell; she must keep her mind
on the friend with whom she is half in love
and who is waiting for her on the blond
gravel somewhere beneath her, keep her mind
Drop
-Dangerous reflects the risk-taking behavior of adolescents
Half in love
-romantic relationship with her friend
-Intensity of emotion and adolescence
Waiting for her
-Double meaning
-Waiting for her love
-Watching for her safety
Enjamberment -> momentum suggests that as adolescence progresses into adulthood / this occurs at a breakneck speed
on her and on the fact of the open window,
the flimsy, hole-punched, aluminium lever
towards which in a moment she will reach
with the length of her whole body, leaning in
Flimsy / Hole punched
-Flimsy and insecure
consance of /l/ “flimsy, hole, aluminium, level” -> evokes the fluidity needed for this endeavor but also the transition between childhood and adulthood / slippery moment in time
Leaning / Reaching
-For a different future
-For new opportunities
to the warm flank of the house. But first she
steadies herself, still crouching, the grains of the asphalt
hot beneath her toes and fingertips,
a square of petrified beach. Her tiny breasts
Flank -> side of person or animal
Personifies the house as a warm and inviting presence
It is a place linked to her parents and her childhood
Sneaking out suggests the girl is pushing the boundaries of independence / she wishes to return to the comforting family home
House becomes a symbol of childhood that is still not left behind
The imagery of ‘Crouching’ - suggesting awkwardness / in-between stage of life / neither standing nor sitting
‘A square of petrified beach’ - the metaphor of the roof top / shows the house is a relic in time. / petrified means fossilized / relic of the past /
‘Her tiny breast’ - adolescence and puberty / not fully grown up
rest lightly on her thighs. – What can she know
of the way the world admits us less and less
the more we grow? For now both girls seem
lit, as if from within, their hair and the gold stud
Grow - growing mentally and physically / suggesting maybe adulthood lacks the freedom and flexibility of youth
Rhetorical question ->
Lit - light and hope in childhood/promise and excitement
For now -> Foreboding suggests that this hope could diminish with age
Gold stud - accessorizing/discovering identity and sexualization / light imagery once again / Contrast with long and grey - metaphor (monotonous, colorless and predictable)
Less and more are paradoxical (The more we grow up the less free we are)
earrings in the first one’s ears; for now the long, grey
eye of the street, and far away from the mother
who does not trust her daughter with a key,
the workers about their business in the drab
Far away - far physical proximity from the workers but in a metaphorical sense the girls have yet to contend the drudgery of adult life / mother’s anxiety and caution or the blandness of worker’s lives
Key
-Opens up doors and freedom / the possibility that power can hold
-Key carries a sense of responsibility / whilst adulthood comes with freedom it also comes with the complexity of responsibility
electroplating factory over the road,
far too, most far, from the flush-faced secretary
who, with her head full of the evening class
she plans to take, or the trip of a lifetime, looks up now
from the stirring omens of the astrology column
at a girl – thirteen if she’s a day – standing
in next to nothing in the driveway opposite,
one hand flat against her stomach, one
The alliteration of “flushed face” -> foil to the girls on the roof
Juxtaposition / Children focused on the present and secretary wistfully daydreaming to escape her situation
Trip of a life time -> Either it symbolizes the opportunity and freedom of adulthood to have the choice or mirrors how the little girls will come to develop full of hope without the opportunity
Astrology -> hope destiny and chance
Next to nothing - alliteration / draws to the innocence of the girl / self-conscious / insecurities of adulthood
shielding her eyes to gaze up at a pale calf,
a silver anklet and the five neat shimmering-
oyster-painted toenails of an outstretched foot
which catch the sunlight briefly like the
flash of armaments before
dropping gracefully into the shade of the house.
A silver anklet … oyster - nails of color oyster/makeup to care for insecurities etc / oysters glistening in the light
Catches the sunlight/flash of armaments - artillery and gunfire / explosive and intensity of youth / also overwhelming aspect of childhood contrasting grey and drab / simile for youth
Flash - temporary/temporary feelings of adolescence
Shades - house of the family suggests she is not independent yet / she is still dependent / moments of independence and freedom she is in the liminal space of transition
