on her blindness - adam thorpe Flashcards
couplets
mirror two eyes
the façade and the truth
speaker and his mother
enjambment
disorientating effect to mirror how the mother feels.
irregular rhyme scheme
uncertainty
‘my mother couldn’t bear being blind, to be honest’
alliteration - intense emotions
colloquial
the truth
confession of her inability to cope
‘one shouldn’t say it’
many people are affected by blindness
distanced himself
‘one should hide the fact that catastrophic handicaps are hell;’
alliteration
expected to be brave and stoical
hyperbolic
caesura - uncomfortable effect
‘bear it like a roman’
suck it up and get on with life
simile
weak if you lose
armour to hide their hurt
society is blind to blindness
ancient rome - ancient rumours
‘she turned to me once’
temporal deixis
opening up about problems
‘whispered ‘its living hell’’
doesn’t want to be overheard
secretive
colloquial language
‘i’d bump myself off’
euphemism for suicide
harsh reality
‘usual sop’
no way of comforting her
feels trapped and despondent - can’t help her
‘she kept her dignity, though, even when she was bumping into walls like a dodgem’
simile
childhood
no control
find joy in pain
did he keep his dignity?
‘her sense of direction did not improve’
dismisses the idea that if you lose one sense the others heighten
‘smiled when kids would offer the latest drawing’
being nice
social contract
the struggles of having a hidden disability
‘long , slow slide’
gradual process of going blind
metaphor for her life
elongated vowels
‘blank as stone’
speeds up poem - blindness is out of control
represents what she sees
idea of darkness, lifelessness and weight of grief
‘she’d visit exhibitions, admire films, sink into television’
ironic - visual things
trying to convince people its not that bad
no pleasure
‘looking the wrong way’
comical but tragic
‘golden weather’
visual
a metaphor for the end of his mother’s life, is colourful
death gave her new life
‘too weak to move, staring at nothing’
dying
death keeps up the pretence
‘it’s lovely out there’
echolalia
meaningless - based on memories
doing it for her children - protect her son
social grace
‘dying made her no more sightless’
emphasises how bad it was when she was alive
already dead to herself
‘she was watching, somewhere, in the end’
comfort
looking down on him
died and suffered
nothing good about blindness
headlines
frustrations of being blind
the reality of having a disability
losing sight can cause a loss of identity
the resilience upheld by those who have a disability
we take our senses for granted
disabilities affect mentality
we can’t relate to something we haven’t experienced
society is oblivious to other people’s suffering
