Half-past Two Flashcards
Form
- Narrative poem in free verse
- Represents how this event disrupted his understanding of time as it is a time he was familiar with
Main themes
- Childhood
- Innocence
- Memory
- Time
- Punishment
Stanzaic structure and line structure
- 11 tercets
- Tercets represent the ongoing regularity of time
- However the 11 tercets represent how he is missing understanding about time, and how the event of his detention was outside his understanding
- Regularity of tercets is also contrasted to he irregular linelength and frequent enjambment
The contrast of the regularity of the tercets and the irregular line length, lack of metre and rhyme scheme ect. shows the stark contrast of how time is always ongoing and the perception of this in a child’s mind
Lexis
- Simple
- Mirrors how the boy would speak/think, accentuating how young he is and how hard it must be for him to understanding the true nature of time
‘Once upon a schooltime’
- Juxtaposition between mundaneness of schooltime and the exctiedness of fairytales
- Shows the childish nature of the boy and his understanding of time
‘Schooltime’ being a compound word also shows his lack of understanding of time
‘He did Something Very Wrong’
- Capitalised
- Shows how scared the boy was about what he did, illustrating his innocence and lack of understanding
‘(I forget what it was)’
- Authorial intrusion
- Shows the boy’s lack of understanding as we now learn that what he did was probably not serious
‘And She said he’d done Something Very Wrong’
- Further capitalisation
- Shows how scared the boy is of the teacher, as he views her as an authoratative, almost god-like figure
‘She hadn’t taught him Time’
- Capitalisation and personification of Time
- Shows how mystifying it seems to the boy as he hadn’t learnt to tell the time yet
‘(He was too scared at being wicked to remind her)’
- Shows how is he scared of the teacher - she rules over him with fear and controls him
- ‘Wicked’ makes it further seem like a fairytale - extending his sense of innocence
‘he knew Gettinguptime, timeyouwereofftime, Timetogohomenowtime, TVtime’
- Asyndetic list of compound words
- Shows how he feels comfort in security in the routine that is familiar to him, and how the detention completely disrupts this security and makes him feel uneasy
- Also shows how his life is controlled entirely by adults
‘Timeformykisstime (that was Grantime)’ and ‘But not half-past two’
- Juxtaposition of security and comfort to the unknown
- Shows how the fact that this is a time he hasn’t experienced before makes it very uncomfortable to him - this demonstrates how his life is dictated by different ‘times’, even though he doesn’t fully understand them
‘He knew the clockface, the little eyes And two long legs for walking, But he couldn’t click its language’
- Personification of the clock
- Shows his innocence as he does not understand the clock but has seen it and makes a childish interpretation of it
‘So he waited, beyond onceupona, Out of reach of all the timefors’
- Compound words
- Make the passage of time seem like a fairytale - shows his complete lack of understand of time as it seems mystical to him
‘Into the smell of old chrysanthemums’
- Synaesthetic imagery
- Makes his experience of a time he is not familiar with seem almost magical
