Below the Green Corrie - Norman MacCaig

Question 1

Themes? (3)

Answer 1

Nature, choices, identity

Question 2

Context? (3)

Answer 2

• Norman MacCaig was a Scottish
  teacher and a poet who lived
  mostly in the West Highlands and
  in the city of Edinburgh.
• He was married once, and they had two children, and although today he is known as perhaps one of the best
  poets of the Scottish Highlands,
  he made his living as a primary school teacher.
• MacCaig was very interested in
  the relationship people have with
  nature.

Question 3

Meaning and purpose? (2)

Answer 3

• Purpose: To express a personal
  nostalgic love of that environment
  and express the power of nature – its
  beauty and danger.
• MacCaig suggests that nature is sublime, threatening and dangerous and has power over mankind.

Question 4

Language? (5)

Answer 4

• Semantic field of war-like imagery with the mountain personified as attacker: “bandits”, “leader” “wearing a bandolier of light”
• Personification in first sentence creates a negative, threatening feeling. ‘Gathered’ creates a feeling of being surrounded by
  the mountains. The simile comparing the ‘mountains’ to ‘bandits’ suggests the speaker is being attacked.
• Light imagery establishes a foreboding atmosphere to convey the power of nature. The personification of the
  mountains in the second stanza suggests that the mountains/nature gives up its enrichment for the experience of others and nature strengthens you.
• Third person plural pronoun ‘they’
  suggests that nature is ‘Other’ and is a mysterious being distinct from mankind.
• Pathetic fallacy- the “ugly” weather is replaced with a “sunshaft” the light
  imagery is symbolic of hope. The
  metaphor of “bandolier of light” has
  connotations of weapons, extending the military semantic field- could convey that nature is powerful as it can enrich your life and bring hope.

Question 5

Form? (3)

Answer 5

• Anaphora of ‘full’ in stanza one
  increases the tension created due
  to the power of nature.
• Enjambment of stanza one
  contributes to the sense of
  urgency like the speaker is being
  attacked by nature.
• Enjambment in the first line of
  stanza 3 creates the idea that
  nature and humans are
  intertwined as the line continues
  into the next like how the
  experience of nature enriches
  your life

Question 6

Structure? (1)

Answer 6

• Free verse - 3 stanzas of irregular
  line length could convey the
  unpredictability of nature and
  power of nature to disrupt orde