National Trust Revision Flashcards
AQA Paper 2 Revision
In the poem National Trust, the depths of caverns and pit is used as an extended metaphor for what?
Human exploitation
What is the dual meaning of the title National Trust?
It refers to the National Trust ownership of the tin mine at Towanroath as the lack of trust lower classes have in the priveleged.
What is the effect of the caesura in the opening line?
It emphasises the depairing and hopless idiom ‘bottomless pits [of despair]’ that sets the tone of the poem.
______ upholders of our law and order’
Stout
What technique is used by Harrison in ‘stout upholders of our law and order’?
Irony - he is pointing out their hypocrisy, particularly with the anecdote that follows.
Why does the anecdote open vaguely? (one day)
It implies that such explotation is a common occurrence.
What motif is explored through ‘hush-hush’ ‘dumb’ ‘holler’ ‘silenced’ ‘tonguless’?
The voiceleness of the working class.
Why have ‘dumb’ on its own line in the first stanza of National Trust?
To emphasise the main theme of the poem - the lack of voice of the working class.
What technique is used in ‘flayed, grey, mad, dumb’?
Listing - to emphasise the brutal treatment of the lower classes.
Why does Harrison repeat the term gentlemen in the poem National Trust?
To mock them as the poem focuses on their ungentemanly behaviour.
to plumb the ______ of Britain’
depths
Killed the language that they _______ in’
swore
The ____ go down in history and disappear’
dumb
Killed the language they swore in’ links to what contextual event.
The decline of the Celtic tongue in Cornwall
How might the killing of the Cornish language link to events happening whilst Harrison was writing?
The Troubles in Northern Ireland. In the previous century the British had removed Gaelic place names in an attempt to impose authority over the Irish.
