Poppies Flashcards
Context
Armistice Sunday = set up to remember soldiers from WW1 but now all wars
Poppies used as remembrance for dead soldiers
Motivations
Represent a woman’s perspective on war which is quite rare
Share the fear of how parents do letting their child go on their own
Also the fear of their protected child in an active war zone
Impact on conflict on domestic life
What happens in the poem?
The mother is talking directly to her son as ‘you’ about armistice Sunday
She pins a poppy on his blaster
She tidies his blazer and reflects when he was a child
She goes to war memorial to mourn
Form of the poem
Dramatic monologue in character of the mother addressing her son
Why does she write a dramatic monologue
Emphasises the pain war causes for the one left behind eg the Mother
Ignores soldiers perspective to truly focus on the mother
Emphasises the soldier is not their and dead
Rhyme scheme of the poem
Free verse
Stanza length
Different and varying
Enjambment
‘All my words/ flattened, rolled, turned to felt/
slowly melting.’
Effect of Enjambment
Break in structure reflects mother breaking emotionally
Why is the structure so broken and varied?
Because the mother feels grief is an unpredictable pattern
The feelings break her in different ways but cannot be ordered
what quotes blend domestic life and war zone?
‘Crimped petals/ spasms of paper red, disrupting a blockade’
‘Sellotape bandaged around my hand’
‘Reinforcements of scarf, gloves’
‘A single dove’
‘Crimped petals/ spams of paper red, disrupting a blockade’
Crimped, spasms, disrupting, red = violent imagery used
Blockade = war term, war haunts the mother everywhere
Spasms = uncontrolled muscle contraction that causes pain like the mothers grief
‘Sellotape bandaged around my hand’
Bandaged = imagery of injured soldier
‘Reinforcements of scarf, gloves’
Reinforcements = war term of protection
‘A single dive’
Religious symbol of grief
Also representative of the Holy Spirit, could be her releasing the sons soul
Why does she blend domestic and military vocabulary
The concept of war invades every aspect of her life and is inescapable
She is haunted by it
‘I was brave’
We expect this to be said by a soldier
But civilians have to be emotionally brave to deal with war
Simile
‘The world overflowing like a treasure chest’
Effect of the simile
The soldier was quite childish
Gives us a snapshot on what he was like and thinking
He had unrealistic optimistic expectations
What poems does this link to?
War photographer = effect on civilian life rather than soldier
Remains = how conflict invades your personal life and is all you can think of
Exposure = soldier dreams of domestic life yet
