Disabled

Question 1

1. Colour imagery

Answer 1

• Post war:
• > “Waiting for dark”, symbolic (death) but also literally night
• > “Grey” - colourless and dull . No joy or colour left in his life.
• Pre-war:
• > “Glow lamps budded”, hope and positivity, “budded “is metaphor for potential (link to flowers and growth), ‘glow’ light and optimism. Juxtaposition with ‘dark’ in first stanza
• > “Light blue trees”, pale but positive colour, juxtaposed with the ‘grey’ and ‘darkness’ now
• War:
• > “Lost his colour very far from here, / Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry” - losing his colour like his energy and enthusiasm/ joy in life, but also physically loss of blood. (Implications of carelessness / negligence?)
• > “Poured” - metaphor sounds intentional as if he means to do it, partially to blame. “Shell-holes” made in both the ground and his body, ambiguity.
• > “And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.” Metaphor, plosives in ‘purple’ and ‘spurted’, ‘spurted’ onomatopoeia
• > Very visceral imagery, metaphor, hyperbolic ‘veins ran dry’ losing his colour, no enthusiasm, loss of health,

Question 2

2. Appearance

Answer 2

• Post war:
• > “….ghastly suit of grey/ Legless, sewn short at elbow”, missing the article (“the” “his” or a”) as the elbow is not there anymore. Truncated clauses reflect how his limbs and potential have been shortened / highlight what is missing (syntactically, a coordinating conjunction). Caesura shows what is missing. Caesura cuts through the stanza mirroring the cutting off of his arm and sibilance emphasises “-less” and loss.
• Pre-war:
• > Joined because of vanity “someone said he’d look a God in kilts” - ironic. “Someone” - mysterious. Irony - lost all power, not Godlike at all: no longer young and beautiful or powerful.
• > “He was younger than his youth, last year.” Paradox, not possible, caesura before last year emphasises how rapidly this has happened by emphasising the words last year, ‘was’ not anymore - past tense highlights dramatic loss . Lost youth, beauty, innocence, strength and optimism. Now in a wheeled chair “waiting for dark”

Question 3

3. Treatment by others

Answer 3

• Post-war:
• > “Tonight he noticed how the women’s eyes / Passed from him to the strong men that were whole” “Tonight” (adverb of time) highlights the fact that this did not happen before. The readers’ eyes (like the women’s) follow the sentence and end by focusing on the object - “the strong men that were whole’ (the end of the sentence) rather than “him”, which is “passed over” as it is in the middle of a line. In addition, the word “passed” is at the beginning of a new line and highlights the movement from one to the next. The rhyme of “eyes” and “wise” may suggest that this is the only intelligent thing to do - overlooking him. Enjambment.
• > “All touch him like some queer disease” - simile
• Pre-war:
• > “Girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim” - ‘Lovelier’ is a comparative, implying they were more attracted to him as danger increased: ‘dim’ pathetic fallacy / increasing darkness and risk of death.