McCaig Poems Flashcards
What are the main themes in visiting hour?
Loss, death, isolation in hospital due to serious illness.
What are the main themes of Aunt Julia?
Regret barriers to communication, death, separation and isolation
What are the main themes in Assisi?
Hypocrisy, pain, suffering, poverty, rejection from society and isolation
What are the main themes of hotel room 12th floor?
Comment on civilisation: Violence, inherent in modern life, isolation from violence, fear of violence
What are the main themes in Basking shark?
Who is the monster? Man vs Nature, Evolution, isolation in boat
What are the main themes of Brooklyn cop?
Comment on civilisation: Violence inherent in modern life, isolation that dangerous job brings
What are the ideas (1) in Visiting hour?
ANGER - that he can’t do anything in the face of death; FEAR of losing a loved one. He was separated from his loved one as she was in hospital in her coma.
What are the ideas (1) of Aunt Julia?
ANGER/GRIEF - that by the time he was able to speak any Gaelic his aunt was dead and the chance was gone. He was separated by the language barrier and isolated
What are the ideas (1) in Assisi?
ANGER - that the dwarf is rejected/ isolated from society white priests should have cared for the dwarf but they are more interested in the tourists
What are the ideas (1) in Hotel room 12th floor?
FEAR OF THE VIOLENCE outside in NYC that he doesn’t move from his hotel room. Disappointment: despite progress, man’s innate propensity is towards violence
What are the ideas (1) in Basking Shark?
FEAR/ REALISATION so who’s the monster? The thought made me grow pale
What are the main ideas (1) in Brooklyn Cop?
REALISATION: we can be brutalised by the job we do. We are intrinsically violent. We have to isolate others we love from true danger of the job so we separate out real nature and adopts another font for the job
What are the ideas (2) in Visiting Hour?
DEATH: “her white cave of forgetfulness” what seems a corpse is trundled heavenward…so many deaths
What are the ideas (2) in Aunt Julia?
NATURE: but I hear her still, welcoming me in a seagulls voice across a hundred yards of peats apes and lazy beds
What are the ideas (2) of Assisi?
REDEEMING FEATURE INNER BEAUTY: voice as sweet as a child’s voice when she speaks to her mother or a birds when it spoke to St Francis
What are the ideas (2) in Hotel room 12th floor?
VIOLENCE / PAIN: skirting like a damaged insect that Jumbo sized dentists drill
What are the ideas (2) in Basking Shark?
NATURE: rise with a slounge out of the sea
What are the ideas (2) in Brooklyn cop?
VIOLENCE: …two hieroglyphs in his face that means Trouble
What are the imagery (1) in Visiting Hour?
DECAY: a withered hand trembles on its stalk
What are the imagery (1) in Aunt Julia?
DECAY: she lay silenced in the absolute black of a sandy grave
What are the imagery (1) in Assisi?
DECAY: sat slumped like a half filled sack
What are the imagery (1) hotel room 12th floor?
VIOLENCE: racing to the broken bones, midnight is not so easily defeated
What are the imagery (1) in Basking Shark?
ORIGINS: emerging from the slime of everything
What are the imagery (1) in Brooklyn cop?
VIOLENCE: what clubbing, what shootings
What are the imagery (2) in visiting hour?
PAIN: metaphor- A glass fang is fixed, not guzzling but giving
What are the imagery (2) in Aunt Julia?
NATURE: metaphor- she was buckets and water flouncing into them
What are the imagery (2) in Hotel room 12th floor?
LAWLESSNESS: frontier stockade wildest of warwhoops
What are the imagery (2) in Basking Shark?
MAN VS NATURE: room-sized monster he displaced more than water…
What are the imagery (2) in Brooklyn cop?
ANIMALISTIC: gorilla with a nightstick
What is the place/setting in visiting hour?
“The hospital smell combs my nostrils
What is the place/setting in Aunt Julia?
Hers was the only house where I’ve lain at night in a box bed, listening to crickets
What is the place/setting in Assisi?
Three tiers of churches built in honour of St Francis, brother of the poor
What is the place/setting in Hotel room 12th floor?
NYC empire state building
What is the place/setting in Basking shark?
At sea to stub on oar on a rock where none should be
What is the place/setting of Brooklyn Cop?
NYC Brooklyn cop
Character: visiting hour
I will not feel, I will not feel, until I have to
Character: Aunt Julia
She was buckets…she was winds…she was brown eggs
Character: Assisi
Frazier in a voice as sweet as a child’s when she speaks to her mother
Character: Hotel room 12th floor
This morning I watched from here; I lie in bed
Character: basking shark
He shoggled me… this decadent townee
Character: Brooklyn cop
He walks the sidewalk and the thin tissue over violence
Word choice (1) visiting hour
Striking words: “guzzling”
Word choice (1) Aunt Julia
Striking words: “flouncing”
Word choice (1) Assisi
Striking words: “clucking”
Word choice (1) Hotel room 12th floor
Striking words: “warwhoops” “glazed”
Word choice (1) Basking shark
Striking words: “shoggled” “slounge”
Word choice (1) Brooklyn Cop
Striking words: “plunge”
Word choice (2) METAPHOR? IMAGERY? Visiting hour
In a white cave of forgetfulness
Word choice (2) METAPHOR? IMAGERY? Aunt Julia
…her right arm drew yarn marvellously out of the air
Word choice (2) METAPHOR? IMAGERY? Hotel room 12th floor
It’s uncivilised darkness is shot at by a million lit windows
Word choice (2) METAPHOR? IMAGERY? Basking shark
Sea tin-tacked with rain
Word choice (2) METAPHOR? IMAGERY? Brooklyn cop
Thick-fleshed, steak coloured, with two hieroglyphs in his face that mean trouble
Structure: Visiting hour
TURNING POINT: Ward 7
Structure: Aunt Julia
TURNING POINT: by the time I had learned a little she lay silenced
Structure: Assisi
TURNING POINT: I understood the explanation and the cleverness
Structure: Hotel room 12th floor
TURNING POINT: but midnight is not so easily defeated
Structure: Basking shark
TURNING POINT: he displaced more than water
Structure: Brooklyn cop
TURNING POINT: should the tissue tear, should he plunge through into violence
Symbolism: Visiting hour
WARD 7, HOSPITAL SMELL (to make us think about pain; death; loss; our own mortality)
Symbolism: Aunt Julia
AUNT JULIA (to make us think about nature; barriers to communication; loss; death)
Symbolism: Assisi
“Three tiers of churches” (to make us think about the richness of the church and the ostentatiousness)
Symbolism: Hotel room 12th floor
NYC (to make us think about the violence present in modern day society)
Symbolism: Basking shark
BASKING SHARK (to make us think about our origins and our place in evolution-not so different from the sharks)
Symbolism: Brooklyn Cop
THE COP (to make us think about our own capacity for violence; or how we can become brutalised by the job we do)
