BC Imagery Flashcards
“Built like a gorilla”
• Simile describes the physical appearance of the cop as unflattering - brutish / powerful / aggressive.
• Suggests he is scary and intimidating and distances him from humanity.
• Suggests primitive animal instincts of cop - symbolises thin line between
civilised and savage behavior
“Two hieroglyphs in his face”
• Metaphor is used, suggesting his eyes are like pictorial characters used in ancient Egyptian writing. Suggests they cannot be read.
• Destroys idea that ‘eyes are the windows of the soul’. Does this suggest cop does not have a soul?
• Again reinforces his brutality/ animal associations as people cannot tell what he is thinking.
• Alternatively, they could be scars…
“Thin tissue over violence”
• Metaphor is used, suggesting that whatever separates the cop from brutal danger is paper-thin. Suggests violence is just below the surface – both in the streets that he patrols and within his own heart.
• Social issue of violence immediately clear due to MacCaig’s shocking description of a character who appears capable of considerable violence and, at the same time, in danger of suffering it himself
“He is a gorilla”
• Metaphor is used, which is not diluted like the simile in the first line: He’s no longer being described as like a gorilla, but is said to actually be one. Suggests that we should not feel sorry for him.
• Suggests that his aggressive manner is inherent in his personality - contrast with his sincerity to his wife perhaps suggests that his aggressiveness is created by his job/environment
“Should the tissue tear”
Extended metaphor is continued from number 3.
Raises the possibility of the cop resorting to savage or brutal behaviour.
Again, the comparison of what holds him back from this behaviour to a “tissue” suggests how quickly and easily this could happen
