Peter Grimes | Crime Poetry Flashcards
Who wrote it?
Crabbe
Context
Crabbe is known for realistic details - social realism
Poverty in the 1800s - workhouses, exploitation, abuse
Part of ‘The Borough’ Collection
Form & Structure
Story Telling Atmosphere - contrasts following actions
3rd Person Omniscient - detached mood, the reader is morally aloof
Rhyming Couplets - bring emphasis on PG’s transgressions & societies ignorance
Elements of Crime
Murder & Violence - show PG’s true nature, the graphic details draw out sympathy
Criminal Psyche - PG’s development & downfall, how his crimes affected his mind (hallucinations etc.)
Victims - young boys from the workhouse, brings attention to how they do not matter in society because they are mistreated & their innocence as a child draws out more sympathy
Comment on Society - their ignorance to those who are exploited and how they only notice when it is too late
Language Techniques
Violent Imagery - Sympathy & attention to the suffering of victims
Semantic Field of Power and Control
Oxymoron - emphasises PG’s sadistic nature, developing his criminal psyche
Bleak Atmosphere - reflects PG’s personality and the suffering he faces during isolation
Caesura - highlights his descent into madness
Toiling slaves of…
piteous orphans
L64
A feeling creature…
subject to his power
L58
Grimes is at…
his exercise
L78
Pinn’d, beaten, cold …
pinch’d, threaten’d and abused
L79
Slave -
shop
L119
In grief submissive …
and with patience sad
L127
Profess’d the lad he loved/ and …
kept his brazen features all unmoved
L157-158
waked by his views of horrors…/Horrors…
Horrors that demons might be proud to raise
L226-228
-I never struck a blow… -/ Unhand me…-
Am I to die today? - My lord, in mercy give me time to pray
L271-277
Again they come!
and mutter’d as he died
L375
