Look we have coming to dover! Flashcards
Look we have coming to Dover
‘So various, so beautiful, so new…’
- Matthew Arnold, ‘Dover Beach’
Have – grammatically incorrect suggest the lack of assimilation to the language
Allusion to ( look we have come through ) and Mathew Arnold – sense of hope, awe etc
Expectation and optimism
Stowed in the sea to invade
the alfresco lash of a diesel-breeze
ratcheting speed into the tide, brunt with
gobfuls of surf phlegmed by cushy come-and-go
tourists prow’d on the cruisers, lording the ministered waves.
Stowed – hidden
Invade – poor connotations sense and semantics of uninvitedness / conflict / lack of welcoming
Alfresco – typically connotes fine Italian dinning but contrasts the harshness of setting
Phelgmed – sickness or infection / unwelcoming (creates the image of bodily rejection) / highlights despite this harshness it is worth it
Brunt – Plosive emphasises the violence
Tourists – Cruisers and Lording – sense of superiority, power and royalty / contrast between the welcomed and the unwelcoming / contrast between the rich and poor / pleasure vs desperation
Ministered – suggests control / strong naval alludes to the naval power of the British
Prow’d – Proud / Prowl
Seagull and shoal life
vexing their blarnies upon our huddled
camouflage past the vast crumble of scummed
cliffs, scramming on mulch as thunder unbladders
yobbish rain and wind on our escape hutched in a Bedford van.
Huddled – image of compactness
Camouflage – repeated imagery of being hidden
Thunder unbladders – personification / suggest unwelcoming nature
Crumble / Cliffs – alliteration highlights the declining nature of the UK
Yobbish – sense of negative attitude
Rain and wind – Water imagery / even after the harsh journey they still face a degree of harshness
Escape – Criminality / evading police
Seasons or years we reap
inland, unclocked by the national eye
or stabs in the back, teemed for breathing
sweeps of grass through the whistling asthma of parks,
burdened, ennobled - poling sparks across pylon and pylon.
Seasons – farming connotations / agricultural jobs / harsh jobs taken up by migrants
Unclocked – hidden or ignored
National eye – authorities or the news
Stabs in the back – metaphorical / poor treatment / danger
Swarms of us, grafting in
the black within shot of the moon’s
spotlight, banking on the miracle of sun -
span its rainbow, passport us to life. Only then
can it be human to hoick ourselves, bare-faced for the clear.
Swarms – perjorative of insects and invasion / reflecting public perception / highlights the lack of humanity placed on these migrants
Swarms – takes away the humanity and the individuality of migrants they are all seen the same way
Moon – working at night poor working conditions / stay hidden
Banking – betting / saving / suggests integration in society as well as the improbability of that chance / gambling but is worth it from the allusions at the beginning
Miracle – impossibility / goodness and happiness
Rainbow – unlikely
Passport – Legalised path where they can be seen in the “sun” and not be hidden
Human – Only time they are humanised
Censura – Empahsis on the idea of shift in tone
Imagine my love and I,
our sundry others, Blair’d in the cash
of our beeswax’d cars, our crash clothes, free,
we raise our charged glasses over unparasol’d tables
East, babbling our lingoes, flecked by the chalk of Britannia!
Imagine – suggests either lack of occrance and hopefulness
Beeswax – contrast the swarmed imagery – flipped meaning
Free – freeness of liberty / lack of hiding / freedom of choice and to do what is wanted
Unparasoled- return to the idea of alfresco and fine dinning
Babbling – without thought (lingoes) freely without constraint about culture / lack of assimilation needed
Britannia – imperialism and colonialism / clinging on to that hopefull vision that drives this immigration
