From Long Distance Flashcards
Her slippers warming by the gas
Present continuous verb - warming - shows his inability to comprehend her loss and that this will always be the case. This shows how he is unwilling to let go and highlights his denial
You couldn’t just drop in. you had to phone
Caesura - highlights their differences as it creates a long pause
You - repetition further shows their distance as you is very general language which makes his son seem like any other guest, this also highlights the grief because it shows he cant really comprehend life anymore
To clear away her things
The possessive pronoun her - shows how he feels alienated as he lives somewhere filled with someone else’s things and this causes him to be unable to let her go as he wont let anything else of hers go
Clear - means to tidy rather than actually get rid of further showing his inability to let go of her
His still raw love
Adjective- raw - links with wounds that have hasn’t healed yet, which shows he still hasn’t got over the loss of his wife and is still hurt by this
Such a crime
Noun - crime - linked with wrong doing which shows how he thinks that he shouldn’t continue to have her things and refuse to let go because people will view him as strange or judge him
He couldn’t risk my blight of disbelief
Metaphor - blight shows how his father sees his disbelief as corruptive like the disease
Juxtaposition- between the father’s and the son’s views emphasises the father’s stubbornness to accept she is gone as disbelief shows the father thinks he is wrong as a belief doesn’t have to be true
Blight of disbelief
Though sure …
Enjambment - shows how monotonous his life seems now his love is gone showing how without his live he doesn’t see the point in life but could also show how strong his grief is as it causes him to convince himself his wife is still alive
Sure that very soon he would hear her key
Verb - sure combined with the declarative statement shows how convinced he is that she isn’t dead due to his ongoing denial or perhaps it is a metaphor and he is in fact waiting for her to open the door to death
Scrape in the rusted lock
Rusted - adjective suggests corrosion and age which shows how little he goes out or has visitors which creates the effect that he closed himself off from the world
Scrape - verb linked with a unpleasant and painful sound showing how other people coming in causes him pain showing how he also doesn’t want visitors further showing how he has shut himself off
I believe life ends with death
Life and death are polar opposites so this juxtaposition shows how he doesn’t make sense any more suggesting how he can’t handle his grief from the recent loss
You haven’t both gone shopping
You - direct address, previously the writing has all been focused on the father but now he is gone he has no-one left to talk too which further emphasises his loneliness and his sense of loss, highlighting his grief
New black leather phone book
Adjective - new - they bought it just after the loss, could be symbolic of how lonely they now feel as they want people to be able to contact and talk to. Also black is linked with death and misery showing how he wants to keep himself in a downward spiral of misery like his father did
I still call
Monosyllabic phrase conveys a lack of emotion so shows how he doesn’t want to accept the loss so highlights the parallels between his father and himself as he also makes a routine for himself
The rhyme pattern reverses at the end
Shows how this loss has completely turned his life upside down and that he is unable to write the same as before, also puts emphasis on the last phrase which emphasises how much he misses them
