Memorial Flashcards
Key themes of Memorial
- Death
- Unending Grief
- Loss
- Isolation
STANZA 1
“Everywhere she dies, Everywhere I go she dies”
The process of her dying stays with him constantly. Poet cannot escape the though of death. Repeated for reinforcement in feelings.
STANZA 1
“No sunrise, no city square, no lurking beautiful mountains”
The ‘no’ emphasises how inescapable and ubiquitous her death is for him. Poet denies himself of life’s pleasures. Cannot escape death no matter how much beauty is around him
STANZA 1
“The silence of her dying sounds through the carousel of language”
Poet uses paradox to show this silence is so intense it impacts as a loud noise would. What he saw as a bright, fun, colourful and musical ride is now silenced by her death.
STANZA 1
“A web on which laughter stitches itself”
Her death is now a web - he is unable to free himself from its hold. The word ‘stitches’ suggests this hold is very strong. Silence is a web trapping him - overpowering him?
STANZA 1
“How can my hand clasp another’s”
Poets feeling of despair. Can never find another future love.
STANZA 1
“Think death, that intolerable distance”
Impenetrable barrier between the dead and the living
STANZA 2
“She grieves for my grief”
Reinforces the bond the two shared while she was alive implying she couldn’t bear to see him sad and suffering.
STANZA 2
“Dying she tells me that bird dives from the sun, that fish leaps into”
Death is not natural to MacCaig. Death, by implication, is seen as a reversal of the natural side of living.
STANZA 2
“No crocus is carved more gently”
Compares her death to a crocus flower - beautiful, natural and fragile. ‘Crocus’ - A symbol for hope and renewal. ‘Carved’ - implications of pain.
STANZA 2
“Other words, black words”
Condolences and sympathies from family and friends.
STANZA 2
“The sound of soundlessness”
Whisper to him of the horror of the oblivion of the grave
STANZA 2
“That nowhere she is continuously going into”
Heaven? God? Poet seems to be unconvinced. Death is presented as a kind a kind of metaphorical journey that has no destination and never ends. The poet believes there is nothing after her death.
STANZA 3
“Ever since she died she cant stop dying”
Poet is saying that she is eternally dying in his thoughts. Paradox - doesnt make sense just like her death doesnt make sense to him.
STANZA 3
“She makes me her elegy”
An elegy is a song or poem associated with death. Emphasises that his grief is raw. He has become a physical embodiment of a lament.
