Long distance II by Tony Harrison (love as loss, rapture of romatic love, how love makes u see the world different)

Question 1

“Though my mother was already 2 years dead”

Answer 1

• voice addresses death in first line- only time used in poem
• tone is abrupt -he contradicts his own displeasure by revealing his grief

Question 2

ABAB rhyme apart from last stanza

Answer 2

• final stanza is where the voice its own objective
• new grief for the father’s death in final stanza
• addresses both father and mother
• ABBA enclosed rhyming couplet symbolises the familial love

Question 3

“You haven’t both gone shopping”

Answer 3

• double negative euphemism to hide its voices grief
• Repetition of negatives gives sense of pathos - a revelation to the reader
• “the disconnected number I still call” euphemism

Question 4

“you couldn’t just drop in. you had to phone”

Answer 4

• “you” instead of “I” distance from father - lack of intimacy
• “you had to phone” mirrors title “long distance” phone call
• caesura adds to the numbness

Question 5

“my new black leather phone book”

Answer 5

• Instead of the bible- forsaken religion- only link to his father, in acceptance of “you had to phone”
• “black” - death

Question 6

Enjambment throughout poem

Answer 6

-although grief is flowing, stanzas become isolated sentences showing lack of proper emotion

Question 7

“He knew she’d just popped out to get the tea”

Answer 7

• certainty of “he knew” juxtaposes the facts. he has not only blocked out her death.
• the grief is so much that her death ceases to exist
• patronising voice
• colloquial language

Question 8

“He couldn’t risk my blight of disbelief”

Answer 8

• “blight” suggests even contact with the truth will harm the father
• “risk[ing]” disbelief the son railing against his father because he cant grieve with him
  -bitterness implies that his ignorance is foolish
  son can’t believe “his still raw love was such a crime”
• guilt- regrets how he indirectly threatened to hurt his father

Question 9

“bed” and “dead” rhyme

Answer 9

• death as sleep

- speak of what is missing

Question 10

“rusted lock”

Answer 10

• lack of use of door (metaphor for rotting away of life)

- passing of time

Question 11

“I believe that life ends with death, and that is all”

Answer 11

certainty

caesura used to emphasise “that is all”

Question 12

Idea of “like father like son” throughout poem

Answer 12

only recognises when it is the end of his fathers life