One Need Not Be S Chsmber To Be Haunted

Question 1

Key theme

Answer 1

Insanity

Question 2

Rhythm

Answer 2

Controlled by alternating trimeter and tetrameter

Question 3

Structure

Answer 3

had a structural breakdown in fourth stance where there is no rhyme and it changes into how we think rather than what we think

Question 4

What does the poem flit between

Answer 4

Internal and external haunting

Question 5

One need not be a chamber to be haunted

Answer 5

Declarative statement. Rejection of gothic tropes. Entire poem is contingent on gothic ideas. Chamber = metaphor for an unknown mind requiring exploration. Metaphor implies many rooms for many secrets to be hidden. Mind is intangible so one need not be tangible or material to be haunted

Question 6

The brain has corridors surpassing material place

Answer 6

Physical imagery - brain can be mapped out but it exceeds in vastness again material land

Question 7

Far safer, of a midnight meeting external ghost

Answer 7

We are more at risk of our own thoughts than any supernatural threat

Question 8

Than it’s interior confronting, that cooler host

Answer 8

Presents the psyche as a different form of ghost - a parasitical being that takes control of the body and host

Question 9

Far safer, through an abbey gallop

Answer 9

Clichéd.. Staged view of picturesque gothic. Contrast between gothic tropes and internal haunting is striking because they are extreme opposites

Question 10

Than unarmed, ones self encounter in lonesome place

Answer 10

‘Lonesome place’ anticipated existentialism, showing ideas of existence and attempting to reason it.
We are unarmed against our own thoughts as they are intrusive and we can’t escape from them (scariness of intangibility because you can’t fight it)

Question 11

Ourself behind ourself, concealed

Answer 11

Speaker is deceived by themselves (split personality?) they’ve gone behind their own back (own worst enemy, intrusive thought etc)

Question 12

The body borrows a revolver, he bolts the door

Answer 12

Physical being can defend themselves but mind remains vulnerable

Question 13

Overlooking a superior spectre or more

Answer 13

‘Or more’ implies continuation of mental pain. Alternative personality for speaker to repress. Unsettling for reader to think that they might not know themselves . Even though it’s our own mind , the poem shows we require external descriptions and comparisons to understand it further

Question 14

What does the poem raise in terms of social taboo

Answer 14

Insanity internalised in the mind, especially when a person is isolated from outside world

Question 15

Key techniques

Answer 15

Chiasmus between internal/external, metaphor, gothic tropes