Disabled Flashcards
Colour imagery - trace this motif
Post war:
“Waiting for dark”, symbolic of (death) but also literally night
“Grey” - colourless and dull . No joy or colour left in his life therefore no reason to continue living
Pre-war:
“Glow lamps budded”, hope and positivity, “budded “is metaphor for potential (link to flowers and growth), ‘glow’ light symbolic of hope and optimism. Juxtaposition with ‘dark’ and ‘grey’ in first stanza
“Light blue trees”, light but positive colour, juxtaposed with the ‘grey’ and ‘darkness’ now. “Light” also symbolises heroism
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 physical loss of blood. (Implications of carelessness / negligence?)
“Poured” - metaphor sounds intentional as if he meant 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. Also could show the bruising - adds to visceral imagery
Very visceral imagery, metaphor, hyperbolic ‘veins ran dry’ losing his colour, no enthusiasm, loss of health
Appearance
Post war:
Y”….ghastly suit of grey/ Legless, sewn short at elbow”, missing the article (“the” “his” or “a’’) as the elbow is not there anymore.
“Ghastly” meaning horror and fear relating to how people feel uneasy around him: he was compared to “some queer disease”
Truncated clauses reflect how his limbs have been lost in war / highlights what is missing (syntactically)
Pause after “legless” and “wheeled chair”: pause after wheeled chair to show the shortening of his legs just like how the sentence has shortened. caesura cuts through the stanza mirroring the cutting off of his limbs
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 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”
“Youth”: connotations of fortitude and strength contrasts with “now, he is old. His back will never brace”. “Old”: signs of weakness. Description of “back” unable to withhold weight shows he has become fragile
Treatment by others
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 overlooked 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 (syntax reflects meaning). 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. “Disease” has connotations of being infected and that it should not be touched or went near
“Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal”: “some”, not all. Only a small majority of people. No sense of triumph or victory. Compared to “Goal”, full of enthusiasm. What he gets for serving the country is less than a scored football. Lack of gratification makes his labour in war less worthwhile
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
Lost sense of heroism
