On a Portrait of a Deaf Man Flashcards
Subject of On a Portrait of a Deaf Man by John Betjeman
Betjeman wrote On a Portrait of a Deaf Man in tribute to his late father.
However, it is an unusual poem as it is very harsh and direct about the less talked-about aspects of death, such as being underground and the process of a body decaying.
Betjeman was obviously fond of his father and describes how he used to dress, where and what he liked to eat and what the pair of them used to do together, such as going on long walks and spotting birds.
The poet ends with anger towards God, expressing his lack of faith in him.
Form and structure of On a Portrait of a Deaf Man by John Betjeman
Form:
This poem is an elegy (a sad poem or song written on the death of someone.)
Structure:
This poem is eight stanzas written in ballad metre.
Lines one and three also have more beats in them than lines two and four.
(If you want to get a bit more technical, one and three are tetrameters, two and four trimeters. Tetrameters have four stresses, trimeters have three stresses).
Sound of On a Portrait of a Deaf Man by John Betjeman
As a reminder of ballad metre, think of the Christmas carol O Little Town of Bethlehem.
Using ballad metre means that the poem lends itself to being read aloud and has harmony, rhyme and rhythm that are quite lyrical.
Imagery of On a Portrait of a Deaf Man by John Betjeman
The language used creates extremes of mood.
A pattern develops whereby Betjeman uses positive, warm images to evoke happy memories:
The kind old face, the egg-shaped head,
The tie, discreetly loud,
The loosely fitting shooting clothes
And then he brutally undermines all this with an image related to death in the following line:
A closely fitting shroud.
This also happens in stanzas two, four and seven.
In these stanzas the death imagery is even worse, bordering on horror:
But now his mouth is wide to let
The London clay come in.
maggots in his eyes
…now his finger-bones
Stick through his finger-ends.
Attitudes, themes and ideas of On a Portrait of a Deaf Man by John Betjeman
Attitudes:
Although the narrator speaks warmly about his late father he doesn’t use euphemisms.
(A euphemism is something said to avoid an unpleasant or offensive word or phrase.)
Usually the subject of death is full of euphemisms such as ‘passed on’ or ‘gone to a better place’. Betjeman is more direct about the nature of death, although this can be upsetting.
Themes:
Loss: Betjeman has to come to terms with the loss of his father.
Lack of faith: the poet has no faith in God.
Death: Betjeman is open and even brutal in the physical descriptions in this poem of the effects of death.
Ideas:
One central idea, hinted at throughout the poem but then clearly revealed at the end, is that death is definitely the end of life.
We do not go to heaven or anywhere else because there is no God. “I only see decay”.
There is, however, the more positive proposal that one should cherish the time we have with the people we love, as Betjeman obviously did with his father.
Example comparison to On a Portrait of a Deaf Man by John Betjeman
Casehistory: Alison (head injury):
- Both poems deal with a before-and-after scenario.
The present Alison is in some ways an entirely different character from the pre-accident version.
- Betjeman views the past and present versions of his father in very different ways.
- Readers will perhaps experience sympathy in both poems. One might feel sorry for the post-accident Alison who has suffered brain damage.
- One might also feel sympathy with Betjeman because he has lost his father.
- Both poems deal with death in one way or another: Betjeman’s father has died (as has his faith in God, if it ever existed); Alison is still alive but the Alison of the past is dead.
How does Betjeman present the character of his father in On a Portrait of a Deaf Man?
- Betjeman’s father has died and the poet writes this elegy to pay tribute to him. In doing so, he does two distinct things.
- Firstly, he creates an image of the living father as a warm, nice man.
- Secondly, he talks of the present state of his father - dead, buried and decaying.
- The first image is usual in an elegy, the second certainly is not.
- Betjeman creates a warm, positive image of his father in the opening lines:
The kind old face, the egg-shaped head,
The tie, discreetly loud,
The loosely fitting shooting clothes
The first adjective he uses to describe his father is “kind”, setting a pleasant tone. He then paints a picture of how his father looked and dressed. - The following line is the beginning of the technique Betjeman uses to create a different character, his father as he is now, a corpse:
A closely fitting shroud. - Betjeman contrasts the cold image of death with warm memories of life and as a result, it has much more impact.
- This technique of juxtaposition continues throughout the poem and as we get to know and like Betjeman's living father, we're exposed to more graphic imagery of death: And when he could not hear me speak He smiled and looked so wise That now I do not like to think Of maggots in his eyes.
Context of On a Portrait of a Deaf Man by John Betjeman
He was also passionate about churches and the stereotypically English way of life, which he thought was fading in the 20th century.
As a result, some of his usual themes were social class and the English countryside, as well as loneliness and death.
Unlike many other published poets, Betjeman managed to write for a living. He also worked as a film critic and for an architecture magazine.
His first volume of poetry was published in 1931 and he wrote many more throughout his life. Betjeman even took the unusual step of writing an autobiography in verse, called Summoned by Bells.
More than two million copies of his Collected Poems have been sold.
His popularity was confirmed when he became Poet Laureate (the Queen’s poet) in 1972. He suffered from Parkinson’s condition later in life and died in 1984 at his home in Cornwall. He was buried in the local churchyard.
