Havisham Flashcards
Beloved sweetheart bastard
Declarative sentence
Alliteration & forceful “B” sound gives impression of words being spat out
Oxymoron contrasting beloved - a term of endearment - and the expletive “bastard” is a forceful shocking start to the poem
Reveals without ambiguity the focus of the speakers hatred
Not a day since then
Constantly on her mind
Unable to remove the pain
I haven’t wished him dead
Violent and destructive - fury
Unambiguous sentance
Dark green pebbles
Metaphor:
Green- colour reference, connotations of jealousy
Pebbles- cold, hard, emotionless, frightening
Ropes on the back of my hands
Veins: connotations of old age
Ropes: suggests tying the knot, marriage
I could strange with
Death, violence
Spinster.
Negative connotations
Word is isolated (like her), short sentance
I stink
Physical deterioration
Smell symbolises bitter memories
and remeber
Constantly looks back
Emphasises isolation
Whole days in bed
Isolation
Cawing
Word Choice
Animalistic, mad, wild
Usually associated with crows which symbolize death
Nooooo
Typography
Repeated “o” sound gives a visual and oral combination that shows Havisham in distress
Yellowing
Colour reference
Decay, aged, diseased
Slewed mirror
Twisted
Suggesting the disturbed psyche, mind altered, unstable
Slewed mirror, full-length, her, myself, who did this
Commas used frequently
Irregular speech pattern
Slows reading to question reasons
to me?
Rhetorical question
Emphasised through enjambement
She is searching for an answer
Puce
Colour
Purplish brown like a bruise
Some nights better
Recalling happier times when she and her fiancé were together
The lost body over me
Synecdoche- a part that represents the whole
My fluent tongue … mouth… ear
Senses
Suggests sensual dream
IT’S mouth … IT’S ear
No name or prounoun his
Even in her dreams there is a distance and an acknowledgment that he is dehumanised
Bite awake
Violent action
Jolted forcefully from dreams
Revenge is implicit
Love’s
Hate
Enjambement highlights oxymoron (contrast)
The hate belongs to the love (possessive language)
Behind a White veil
Alludes to the wedding that never was
Red balloon bursting in my face
Metaphor for heart breaking
“Bursting” word choice - symbolises the violent emotions
Alliteration connects and emphasises the forcefulness of the feelings
Bang.
Onomatopoeia
Isolated word
Word choice
Violent connotations of gunshot and murderous thoughts
Extends red balloon metaphor
Stabbed at a wedding cake
Lethal element to language
Not cutting the cake traditionally but subverting the common image
Give me a male corpse for a long slow honeymoon
Demonstrates how warped her mind has become
Contrasts death and life
B-b-b-breaks
Her mind is literally and figuratively broken
Repetition of the sound b symbolises her final descent into madness
Final stanza
Word by word and line by line becomes more disturbing showing her deterioration into madness
Havisham (title)
Her unmarried surname
Reveals her self loathing and bitterness at being denied the epithet of mrs and being forced to live the rest of her life as a spinster
Form and structure of havisham
Lack of rhyme and enjambement
creates the effect that havishams voice is choppy and stilted
emphasises the lack of order and structure to her thoughts
Half rhymes and assonance reinforce lack of logic and the erosion of the speakers psyche
