Disabled Flashcards
When was it wrote?
1917
‘He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark’.
Profound image of loneliness, pathos evoked.
Ambiguous term, ‘waiting for dark’, night or death?
‘Ghastly suit of grey’.
Figurative, is this an actual suit or his demeanour?
‘Ghastly’, almost gothic. Soldiers eventually become these ‘spectral spaces’.
What is the irony in the ‘stiff-upper lip’?
Thought heroism came from suffering, yet once they ‘threw away his knees’, they all ‘touch him like some queer disease’.
What signify that time has moved on?
Asterisks.
Suffering from the war is permanent.
‘Voices of play and pleasure’.
Plosive alliteration.
Reminiscent of his past life.
‘Legless, sewn short at the elbow’.
Sibilance.
We get literal insight into his injuries.
‘Like a hymn’.
Simile
Voices repeated.
Anaphora. Truly reminiscing over his past.
Corruption of youth, what he once was, what he is now.
Importance of time:
Asterisks. Suffering is permanent.
References to past highly contrast what he once was.
‘Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him’.
His youth has been stolen by the ‘mother’ figure.
Mother nature?
Capitalisation of ‘Town’.
It could be anywhere, this is simply a microcosm for the experience of thousands of men.
‘Girls glanced’.
Guttural alliteration
‘Glow lamps budded’.
Symbolism of youth.
‘the air grew dim’.
Ominous foreshadowing that his life is going to grow dim.
