Out Of The Blue

Question 1

Imagery of people falling

Answer 1

The last phrase (or sentence) of stanza five mirrors the falling, tumbling motion of the people falling thousands of feet to their death:”Appalling
That others like me
Should be wind-milling, wheeling, spiralling, falling.”

Question 2

People are watching on the TV but cant help

Answer 2

Do you think you are watching, watching a man shaking crumbs/or pegging out washing?” In stanza four he is confronting his limited options

Question 3

Repetition

Answer 3

Armitage evokes a sense of powerlessness by using repetition, either of words or of sounds (“twirling, turning” or “waving, waving”). This expresses the pointless repetition of actions (such as the man waving his shirt). Nothing can make any difference now.

Question 4

Emotive language

Answer 4

The emotional power of the poem lies in this understated use of language, the collision of the mundane (ordinary) words and the horrific subject matter.
E.g appalling used to describe the weather

Question 5

Poems to compare to

Answer 5

Mametz Wood – both of these poems deal with death on a large scale and the relationship between personal tragedy and social history.

charge of the light brigade
Both poems also describe victims caught up in a disaster not of their making.

Question 6

Form

Stanzas

Answer 6

The poem is in short, four-lined stanzas. This form suggests the narrator’s attempts to maintain self-control.

The variations in line lengths, however, betray his changing emotions. The lines vary from short, clear thoughts and questions (“you have picked me out”, “So when will you come?”, “A bird goes by”) to a desperate awareness that his life is poised above an “appalling” void.