Deceptions

Question 1

“Of course I was drugged and so heavily I did not regain consciousness until the next morning.”

Answer 1

• Discourse marker : normalises the situation creating a sense of passivity
• Power imbalance of the speaker - inferiority and insubordination
• Epigraph : used to give a scope to the speaker and look at issues regarding SA in society

Question 2

“I had been ruined”

Answer 2

• Euphemistic and definitive : shows the powerless nature of the victim and its irreversible consequences
• Previously would have been shamed and outcast for it highlighting the unfairness
• Brutalises the situation emphasising its harshness

Question 3

“Cried like a child to be killed or sent back to my aunt”

Answer 3

• Simile : degrading and infantilising. Presents the speaker as naive and childish despite it being such a horrific and destructive act done creating a sense of irony.
• Speakers perspective : sense of self-blame
• Emphasises the brutal reality of the situation as life ruining and devastating

Question 4

“I can taste the grief”

Answer 4

• Visceral imagery / metaphor : sense of permanence and dismay to the horrific actions committed
• Humanises the experience
• Traumatic experience that has stained the individual
• Presents an empathetic speaker through the shift in perspective

Question 5

“The brisk brief worry of wheels”

Answer 5

• Plosive alliteration : emphasises the traumatic event highlighting the woman’s pain and suffering
• Ordinary events become fearful, motif of anxiousness
• Emphasises the trauma changes perspective

Question 6

“And light, unanswerable tall and wide, forbids the scar to heal, and drives shame out of hiding”

Answer 6

• Personification : humanises the experience through fear and threat
• Light imagery : subversion of something that typically symbolises hope however this is undermined
• Syndetic listing / tripartite : brutalises the harsh reality, elongation emphasises the irreversible pain and suffering from the victim
• Predatory imagery provoked furthering the victims status

Question 7

“And light, unanswerable tall and wide, forbids the scar to heal, and drives shame out of hiding”

Answer 7

• Personification : humanises the experience through fear and threat
• Light imagery : subversion of something that typically symbolises hope however this is undermined
• Syndetic listing / tripartite : brutalises the harsh reality, elongation emphasises the irreversible pain and suffering from the victim
• Predatory imagery provoked furthering the victims status

Question 8

“All the unhurried day your mind lay open like a drawer of knives”

Answer 8

• Enjambment : through the elongation and continuation her position is harshened
• Simile : shows that her mind is filled with violence and destruction
• Vulnerability of the victim, in constant reminder of the traumatic experience
• Suicidal reading : emphasises the extent of the experience, hypocritical society

Question 9

“Bridal London bows the other way”

Answer 9

• Personification : complete rejection of the victim emphasises the hypocritical misogynistic society
• Undermined as she has ‘lost her purity’ and no longer seen as innocent
• Ironic as it has been taken from her and the man is not punished
• Mocking tone : used to undermine society’s views due to them bowing to the abuser
• Marriage is prioritised over abuse, if not married first seen as inferior

Question 10

“Where desire takes charge, readings will grow erratic?”

Answer 10

• Rhetorical question : trying to make sense of the situation and rationalise the rapists actions
• Presents sexual desire as uncontrollable, primitive and promotes animalistic imagery
• An attempt to console

Question 11

“You were the less deceived, out on that bed, than he was”

Answer 11

• Intertextuality to Hamlet
• Emphasises a sense of vulnerability
• Refers to the collection as a whole, Larkin was going to name the poem the Less Deceived
• Caesura creates a separation between the victim and the rapist emphasising him as a villainous figure who’s desires were empty and hollow
• Gives the victim a platform and holds the abuser accountable

Question 12

“To burst into fulfilments desolate attic.”

Answer 12

• Juxtaposition : place of memory and storage of loved possessions
• Emphasises the victims memories as painful and dangerous Highlighting the everlasting effects
• Lacks satisfaction and joy furthered by the endstop emphasises the permanent position of the victim

Question 13

CONTEXT

Answer 13

• London labour and London Poor, work of a Victorian Journalism by Henry Mehew in 1840s, looked into the position of poorer classes
• Initially wanted the title to be the Less Deceived
• Societal expectations in Victorian England
• Radicalism within the poem potentially links to him rejecting poet Laurette in Hull
• Hermit of Hull

Question 14

STRUCTURE

Answer 14

• Voice : epigraph at beginning upholds the victim, giving them a voice
• Shift in voice emphasises an empathetic speaker