On Her Blindness Flashcards
1
Q
TITLE
A
- Intertexuality of John Milton poem
- Mocking by being stoic
2
Q
“Bear being blind”
A
- Plosive Alliteration : builds a blunt, brutal reading of mothers suffering
3
Q
“To be honest. One shouldn’t say it”
A
- Colloqial language - blunt truth
- Endstop : bluntness of societal expectation now allowed to say it
- Opening couplet emphasises honest account of suffering
4
Q
“One should hide the fact that catastrophic handicaps are hell”
A
- Overly formalised language / anaphora : mocking of stoic language
- Enjabment : personal story, flow of the text, thought process of speaker, monosyllabic
5
Q
“Like a roman”
A
- Simile : noble / warrior-like
- Courageous
6
Q
“In a Paris restaurant”
A
- Setting : connotations of sophistication and prestige
- Mother is incongruous to setting
- Eloquence is juxtaposed, lack of status and decorum
- Undignifying
7
Q
“Whispered”
A
- Not fully accepting of truth
- Painful reality
8
Q
“I’d bump myself off”
A
- Euphemistic : element of truth hidden in stoicism
- Colloquial language - confession is honest and exposing
9
Q
“The usual sop, inadequate: the locked-in son”
A
- Caesura : reflects him being inadequate, son feels trapped
- Colloquialism : facetious and mocking stoicism, formality criticised
- Illness is personal
10
Q
“Bumping into walls like a dodgem”
A
- Simile : element of pathos and tragedy, colloquial creating sympathy
- Contrasting imagery of dark humour : coping mechanism
11
Q
“No built in compass”
A
- Negators / metaphor : whole family in denial , no one can comfort her illness
- Trying to use humour to cope
12
Q
“Or laughed it off. Or saw things she couldn’t see”
A
-Polysyndetic listing : conjunctions show she is trying to disguise illness
- Inescapable fate
13
Q
“The long, slow slide has finished in a vision as black as stone”
A
- Enjabment / metaphor: disease/illness if elongated emphasising suffering
- Assonance : illness is brutal and long drawn out, will get worse and worse, like the slide down
- Simile : emphasises irreversibility of illness, sense of hiding behind dignity, degeneration of eyesight, permanence of illness, cold harsh brutal reality
14
Q
“She’d visit exhibitions, admire films, sink into television while looking the wrong way”
A
- Asyndetic listing : dark humour. Bathos/ antic-climactic humour emphasises futility of illness. Coping mechanism.
15
Q
“Golden weather” / “autumn trees” / “ablaze with colour”
A
- Symbolic of ending of life - Autumn
- Setting is ironic : such beautiful natural imagery cannot be seen, connotes wealth rich and luxury which mother cannot see. Pitiful / empathising
