On Her Blindness Flashcards
1
Q
What other poem does the title of ‘On Her Blindness’ refer to?
A
‘On His Blindness’ - John Milton
2
Q
Why is the title of the poem significant
A
- makes reference to ‘On His Blindness’ where John Milton suggests that going blind has brought him closer to god
- Thorpe rejects this stoic idea in ‘On Her Blindness’
3
Q
“My mother could not bear being blind”
A
- plosive alliteration
- helps to immediately set a blunt tone, conveying the brutal reality of the mothers suffering
4
Q
“One shouldn’t say it // one should hide the fact that catastrophic // handicaps are hell”
A
- formal pronoun ‘one’ mocks the stoic attitude that people are expected to take when facing life-changing illnesses
5
Q
“One tend to hear // publicly from those who bear it // like a Roman”
A
- simile
- suggests that we depict facing illnesses as a battle of courage and strength, which is a sentiment that the poet rejects
6
Q
“The locked-in son”
A
- metaphorical image
- suggests the son feels trapped by not being able to help his mother
- alternatively not being able to express how he truly feels
7
Q
Repetition of “to be honest”
A
- stanza 1 and stanza 6
- reiterates that the poem is an honest and frank portrayal of what it is to experience serious illness
8
Q
“The usual sop”
A
- speakers attempts at reassuring his mother
- conveys how he sees his words as generic and empty
9
Q
“The long/slow slide”
A
- break across two stanzas describes mothers deterioration
- conveys the extended and drawn-out suffering that the mother has to endure
10
Q
“A vision as black as stone”
A
- conveys how mothers sight ended
- simile implies her loss of sight has taken away and hardened an element of humanity
11
Q
Why does the poet use brackets?
A
- eg (try it in a pitch black room)
- presents a more personal, relatable account of the mothers suffering as opposed to generic public stories of those who “bear it like a roman”
12
Q
Why is the poem in the form of couplets?
A
- intended to be a representation of the speaker and his relationship with his mother which is one of the focus’s of the poem
13
Q
Why is the couplet structure broken in the end of the poem?
A
- single line stanza at the end of the poem intended to be a visual representation of the speakers loss of his mother
- the speaker is left alone to believe “she was watching, somewhere, in the end”
