Chainsaw Vs The Pampas Grass

Question 1

Enjambent vs end stops

Answer 1

• oscillation between enjmabment and end stops varies the pace and creates a chaotic and violent atmosphere
• no enjmabment between stanzas however suggests either the unnatural barriers that humanity creates and thus its power OR the fact the nature will always end victorious

Question 2

Structure/form

Answer 2

• eight stanzas aren’t ordered in line length or amount of lines per stanza
• suggests chaos in the industrial era
• free verse gives an authenticatic feeling that highlights the constant chaotic battle between man and machine
• unlevel line lengths can represent the damaging nature of the chainsaw and how it can fragment anything in its path

Question 3

Motif of festering anger

Answer 3

• ‘all winter unplugged’ is short and emphatic and gives the impression of festering anger due to neglect
• ‘weightless wreckage of wasps’ the alliterative ‘w’ resembles the sound of machinery revving up which emphasises the image of neglect over the ‘winter’ period.

Question 4

Knocked back a quarter pint

Answer 4

• personification that links to many stereotypes both masculine and working class, giving the chainsaw a metaphorical societal place
• hegemonically masculine trope of beer drinking and even alcohol hist is seen as masculine
• the colloquialism however suggests working class vernacular, linking to the lower class trope of people in a bar

Question 5

Gunned the trigger

Answer 5

• miliataristic imagery makes chainsaw a metaphorical gun
• this connotes destruction and to a start of a streak of violence

Question 6

Animalistic, primitive desire

Answer 6

• ‘bloody desire’ plosives create a harsh and implicitly violent tone. Here violence is seen as intrinsically linked to human need
• ‘gargle in its throat’ the noise is raw and primitive implying that the chainsaw is acting on the most basic of desires

Question 7

Short pampas grass paragraph

Answer 7

• sematic field of affluence and royalty which juxtaposes the animalistic tendencies of the chainsaw
• a lot of phrases very typical in femininity and upper class, very Victorian stereotypes of the bourgeoise

Question 8

Overkill,I touched the blur of the blade

Answer 8

• lexis overkilll suggests that the amount of violence undergone is not implicitly necessary and instead the raw violent tendencies of the man have overtaken what he knows to be moral
• ‘b’ plosive alliteration suggests that there is ease in the cutting process which shows the hubris of humans and the enjoyment in these violent acts

Question 9

Short trivialised sentences

Answer 9

• it didn’t exist, this was a game and I left it at that
• short and declarative but also somewhat satirical which imply that he sees the brutality of his actions not as necessary but as a source of enjoyment
• he is not regretful or mincing of his words but clear about his intentions
  -I left it at that uses caesura to create an abrupt anticlimax that shows the hubris of men as it provides a sense of clear finality and victory in the pressumption he has succeeded over the grass

Question 10

Dark secret warmth

Answer 10

• allusion to rape
• shows male pleasure in invading female privacy as he sees is as a conquest rather than an invasion

Question 11

Blade chocked and closed

Answer 11

• clattering hard constant descriptions suggest vigorous amounts of violence
• also further the brutalist violent imagery and the male pleasure at inflicting this
• choked alludes to strangulation which continues the brutal and very human acts of violence

Question 12

Corn in Egypt

Answer 12

-biblical allusion to when corn was stockpiled to save famine, this shows how the grass is a survivor and will return in surplus
- could also allude to the Egyptian moon god who was the creator of life, showing how despite the attack and abuse the grass faces it will regrow steronger