On Her Blindness

Question 1

What are the themes in this poem?

Answer 1

Protection of suffering, denial due to grief

Question 2

What is the title an allusion type?

Answer 2

John Milton’s On His Blindness - which is a stoic poem about dealing with his blindness in an almost stoic way.

Question 3

‘My mother could not bear being blind/to be honest.’

Answer 3

Alliterative plosives set a harsh tone of the realities of her blindness, brutal truth of suffering. Caesura is emphatic of this.

Question 4

‘One should hide’ ‘one tends to hear’

Answer 4

formal registor/ repetition of ‘one’ pronoun (impersonal/artificial) to mock the stoic approach towards illness

Question 5

‘handicaps are hell’

Answer 5

alliterative phrase - blindness leads to prominent repeated suffering

Question 6

‘bear it like a Roman’

Answer 6

simile - to mock those who face handicaps with a stoic approach suggesting that those who face illness with courage are unrealistic - battle of courage

Question 7

‘Paris restaurant, still not finding/ the food on the plate’

Answer 7

Setting represents elegance/ease which juxtaposes the connotations of her awkwardness/ clumsiness.

Question 8

‘and whispered’

Answer 8

Suggests her pain is hidden from society - uncomfortable

Question 9

‘to be honest’

Answer 9

Demotic language - explore blunt/frank nature of reality juxtaposes formal, links to opening couplet, honest account of suffering

Question 10

‘the locked-in son’

Answer 10

metaphor - son feels trapped by mot be able to do anything/express how he feels

Question 11

‘like a dodgem’

Answer 11

Simile - mocking language, clumsy nature of his mum, makes light of her vulnerability - colloquial tone to comment on the mother demise, in denial

Question 12

‘as my father/joked.’

Answer 12

end stop puts emphasis on how they make light of her harsh situation, perhaps to cope, contrasts with blnt reality of the mothers illness

Question 13

’ saw things she couldn’t see/ and smiled’

Answer 13

Sibliance shows her forced acceptance of her situation, acts like she understands to fit in, the extent to which the mother attempts to avoid/deny her suffering - creates a sense of pathos

Question 14

‘long, /slow slide’

Answer 14

assonance/sibiliance - gradual, slow, drawn out suffering/deterioation - strenous journey of her blindness

Question 15

‘as black as stone’

Answer 15

unembelished simile - finality of her blindness, no hope of retaining her sight - blindness has stripped her of her joy/vibrancy, loses a sense of humanity/ hardened by suffering - stoic and lyrical

Question 16

‘She’d visit exhibitions, admire films, sink into television / whilst looking the wrong way’

Answer 16

The use of asyndetic listing shows a deep desire to return to herself to the extent that she is in denial. Use of bathos (from the sublime to the ridiculous).

Question 17

‘golden weather’ ‘autumn trees’ ‘ablaze with colour’ ‘royal’

Answer 17

Metaphorical description has connotations off wealth/texture (visual imagery). Ironic as she will never be able to see the beauty - poignant. Juxtaposes ‘black as stone’

Question 18

‘leaf fall’

Answer 18

Symbolic of the mother’s death/end of life - as autumn is before winter which symbolises death. Speaker unable to face the harsh reality go his mothers suffering

Question 19

‘staring at nothing’

Answer 19

Juxtaposes with colour imagery - abyss

Question 20

‘it’s lovely out there.’

Answer 20

Return to mother’s dialogue - poem is what we say and don’t say - no response to ‘living hell’. End stop emphatic of sudden finality of her death.

Question 21

‘somewhere’

Answer 21

ambigious ending/ uncertainty after death - inescapable fate, fiction continues in death and pretends to ease grief/hope. Final single line is emphatic of separation between narrator and mother OR isolation in death of mother.