Please Hold Flashcards
What are the themes in this poem?
Power and conformity to society - looking at the future of technology. Commenting on modern society and our lack of freedom to choose how we live
‘Please Hold’
Title uses robots voice/ hedged imperative - shows forceful tone of robot/ in control
What device is used throughout in regards to the speaker?
Heteroglossia - robot/wife/narrator - disoriented/chaotic
‘The robot is giving me countless options, none of which answer to my needs’
Extended metaphor for lack of life choices afforded as as a result of tech/new world/ restriction/ illusion of choice - antithesis shows ironic o societies attempts to fufill our needs as being futile
‘This is the future, my wife says’ ‘Your future, here, she says’
Caesura - wife uses tone which is seemingly robotic/ clipped language - emphasis on immediate passive acceptance of the system/modern life
‘I give him’ x2
repetition of verb show narrator surrendering power to robot
‘but I can find nothing to meet my needs’
volta/argument marker - have lots but has nothing - consumerism? - repetition of phrase shows the emptiness/pointlessness of interaction
‘I shout’
juxtaposes speakers previously controlled/polite communication with robot - verb emphatic growing frustration - powerless
‘This is the future.’
repetition shows inescapable future, almost dystopian - higher power in control - powerless lacking freedom/choice
‘Please say Yes or No / Or you can say Repeat of Menu …’
excessive list - suggests the speaker feels overwhelmed/frustrated/powerless
‘to someone real, who is just as robotic’
simile - humans completely overrun by tech - become products of our society
‘I scream’ ‘cut off’
suggestive of violence despite aggressive narrator being powerless
‘giving me no options in the guise of countless alternatives’
juxtaposition - robot is almost presented as spiteful/malevolent
‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusik’
high brow Mozart/ classical music is trivialised / cheaper as art is no longer individual expression but a means for technology
’ and the robot transfers me to himself’
humans become a salve to technology - inescapable continuous cycle
‘and my translator says’
speaker references his mind/ internal intuition as he takes technical lang over robot as he begins to conform
‘Please hold. Please grow old. Please grow cold. Please do what you’re told. Grow old. Grow cold. This is the future. Please hold’
Final tercet shows how life becomes monotone - no longer any sense of individuality
What form is the poem written in?
dramatic monologue
