Hide and Seek - Scannell Flashcards
intro
- About: the innocence and excitement of a childhood game –> subtly hinting at themes of loneliness, betrayal, and the loss of innocence
- Purpose: vulnerability of trust and the inevitability of disappointment
- Tone: playful + eager –> sombre - speaker is left alone - mirroring the journey of growing up
Themes :
- Loneliness / Isolation + Abandonment
- Complexity of childhood experiences
- Cruelty of children
‘Call out. Call loud.’
Imperative - ‘Call’
- confident tone - motivates boy
‘I’m ready! Come and find me!’
Excited / Exhilarated Tone:
- Exclamation marks = captures child’s exuberance + anticipation
’ the sacks in the toolshed smell like the seaside’
Simile:
- ‘seaside’ = nostalgic memories attaches (holidays) –> warm nostalgic feeling –> comfortable
‘salty dark’
Synaesthesia - amplifies child’s complex sensations:
- blending of Taste + vision –> mysterious + secretive atmosphere –> sense of anticipation
what does Scannell use to describe the child’s tense experience
Sensory language / imagery
’ The floor is cold.’
Caesura:
- sudden restriction of natural flow –> rhythm = abrupt + sudden
- Sudden Change in Tone for 3 lines: Foreboding + Danger:
- Foreshadowing ?
‘you mustn’t sneeze when they come prowling in**
Animalistic Imagery:
- verb - ‘prowling’ = Predatory connotation
- boy = prey, seekers = predators
- he is vulnerable + tension
‘Don’t breathe. Don’t move. Stay dumb, Hide in your blindness’
Instant Imperative Voice: ‘Don’t’ + ‘Hide’ + Multiple Caesura:
- affects rhythm , gives a hurried breathlessness –> panicked
‘their words and laughter scuffle’
Contrasts directly with ‘you’ve never heard them sound so hushed before’:
- Irony: implies children are cruel towards boy - chose to abandon him
- verb - ‘scuffle’ - connotations of secrey + aggressions towards boy
‘the cold bites through your coat’
Personification + Animalistic Quality of ‘cold bites’:
- verb ‘bites’ = sharp + painful
- is aggressive and meant to inflict pain
- hiding place has become place of torment
- Plosive Sound of ‘bites’ –> amplifies aggressive quality
‘The dark damp smell of sand’
‘dark damp smell of sand’ - correlates to ‘smell like seaside’:
- smell is no longer comforting , instead hostile + visceral
‘I’ve won! Here I am! Come and own up I’ve caught you!’
Direct Speech + Exclamatory sentences –> Victorious + Triumphant Tone
- replicates excitement at the start –> but different as jubilant outburst is overpowered by disappointment + abandonment
‘the darkening garden watches
Personification:
- evokes still + sinister + foreboding atmosphere
- ‘darkening’ - gestures that cruel trick has been played - fear + unkown
