If- Flashcards
Form
- Didactic poem - giving advice
- Narrative from father to son
Main themes
- Advice, but hopeful
- Stoicism
- Parent/child relations
- Balance, moderation and maintaining virtue
- Persistence and discipline
Repetition of ‘If’ followed by subordinate clauses
- The repetion of ‘If’ at the start of a sentence is anaphora
- ‘If’ is a conditional
- It shows how there are many requirements which must be met in order to achieve the final reward: The earth, and being a man
- It also shows how life has consequences, which seems like fatherly advice
Rhyme scheme
- ABABCDCD
- This very simple rhyme scheme shows how the the challenges of life are unescapable, yet they should be met with stoic integrity
Metre and stanzaic structure
- Iambic pentameter with alternate feminine endings
- Very regular stanzaic structure
- Shows how inescapable life’s difficulties are, yet how they should be met with stoic integrity
- The whole poem building to a climax shows that as long as you meet the requirements, you can have whatever you want
Use of second person
- Shows how it is from father to son
- However it also higlights the universality of his message
‘If you can keep your head when all about you’
- Synecdoche of ‘head’ to show composure
- Colloquial language to build a conversational, fatherly tone
‘don’t deal in lies… don’t give way to hating… don’t look too good, nor talk too wise’
- Repetition of imperatives - makes it emphatic
- Emphasises the poems didactic nature - don’t be immoral by hating and lying, and don’t be too full of yourself and show off
‘Or being hated, don’t give way to hating’
- Polyptoton
- Emphasises what you should and should not do, and also how many people will do the wrong thing but you must not follow suit
This technique is used throughout the poem
‘If you can dream - and not make dreams your master’ and ‘If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim’
Dashes add emphasis to the words that follow - You can’t only do the first one, but must do the second one too
‘If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two imposters just the same’
- Capitalisation of Triumph and Disaster personifies them
- This shows how inevitiable it is that they will come into your life, and that they can seem imposing
- Calling them ‘imposters’ shows how they are both short lived, and one will always come after the other
‘If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoke Twisted by knaves’
‘Knaves’ means dishonest men
- Metaphor
- Advice to show how people will always slander you, but you must bear it as these people are inconsequential to your life
‘Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,’
- ‘Gave your life to’ is hyperbole
- ‘broken’ ends on a feminine ending, which breaks the metre and is mimetic of the meaning of the word, emphasising it
- The sentence highlights how it is inevitable that the things you devote yourself too may sometimes fall at the hands of others, but you must bear it
‘And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools’
- Metaphor to show the human potential of how we can keep going even when we are worn out
- '’em up’ continues to build the conversational tone
‘If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss’
- Metaphor and imagery of gambling
- Shows how you should take risks and not be too attached to past successes, otherwise you will never make progress
