From Long Distance Flashcards
‘Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad’
-‘dad’–> informal -speaker is closer to him
‘mother’–> formal -speaker seems to have coped with the grief from the loss with time
‘Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot watter bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass’
-the father, even two years, is still in denial of the loss
-REPETITION OF POSSESIVE PRONOUN ‘her’: emphasizes his longing for her + searching for her in any object of hers
-He tries to fill in the space/void through the tasks that he was accustomed to doing for her like (above)
-These habits help him forget the overwhelming pain + create a sense of his wife’s presence
-deeper meaning transport pass: hints of travel/communication –> connection to her
‘You couldn’t just drop in. You had to phone.’
‘You’–> refering to everyone –> distanced everyone of his life (emphasizes how strongly the loss impacted the father)
Caesura–> hilights the strictness of his rules
–> breaks line into 2 –> mirrors broken + distant father-son relationship
‘He’d put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away his things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime’
-He clears away all the traces of her memory so he is not caught still grieving (feels embarassed because man expected to be ‘strong’)
-father ashamed of exposing his “still raw love” –> connotations of recent/fresh pain (despite it occured long time ago)
-‘as though’ & ‘such’–> suggest son isn’t critical of his father
Enjambment- mirrors father’s urgency as he hurries to “clear away” his deceased wife’s things. This hurry suggests that he knows how his behavior looks to others. He’s ashamed and doesn’t want his son to know that he hasn’t moved on.
He couldn’t risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he’d hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she’d just popped out to get the tea.
‘Rusted’ & ‘grief’ - lexical field of decay –> linking to theme of death & father’s life slowly breaking apart
-father scared son won’t understand
-eagerly waiting to hear “her key scrape in the rusted lock” since that noise will bring an end to the overwhelming feeling of loss he has been suffering
-‘popped’ connotes quick JUXTAPOSES reality of death ETERNAL
-The enjambment across (“he’d hear her key / scrape in the rusted lock”) makes the following end-stopped line (“end his grief”) land with greater finality.
I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven’t both gone shopping; just the same,
(Dad now dead)
-change of rhyme –> suggest the change of focus from the father to the son
+The son seems to have a calm approach to death as he accepts it as part of the natural order
+He has not created any false narrative to comfort himself
-caesura in fist line: hints finallity, further emphasized by mono syllabic clause
‘in my new black leather phone book there’s your name
and the disconnected number I still call.’(4)
-the son has his father’s number in his “new black leather phone book” that he”still call(s)”
–> son longs for connection phone creates
–>The poem ends with irony as the poet too repeats his father’s way of mourning
-Adjective choice black- connotes mourning
-final line links to title –> long distance call
Themes
-death
-grief
-denial (protecting himself from the truth)
-persistence of love
Tone + Structure(3)
Sonnet –> for intense emotion grief creates
Lose iambic pentameter + line length varies –> creates conversational tone
Rhyme scheme - mirrors everyday routine
