🌹 poppies Flashcards
Who is the poet of Poppies?
Jane Weir
Summary of Poppies
The narrator places a poppy on her son’s blazer and recounts memories of her son - using sellotape to remove cat hairs from his clothes, smoothing down his collar. She remembers trying to stop her emotion and resist smothering him. After he leaves the house she goes to his room and climbs a hill to lean on the war memorial and watch a dove. The narrator wishes she could hear her son’s voice still
5 key quotes in Poppies
1) ‘run my fingers through the gelled blackthorns of your hair.
- ‘Blackthorns’ Alluded to Jesus because he had a thorn crown which represents the son’s sacrifice
2) ‘All my words / flattened, rolled, turned into felt // slowing melting’
- Suggesting she speaks softly and holds in tears as she is trying to keep her composure, which is disappearing
- Continuing onto next stanza
3) ‘the word overflowing / like a treasure chest’
- SIMILE Taking son to heaven while she walks in the church with his coffin. From the son’s perspective he makes it sound exciting and full of precious experiences
- Creates an image of there being an outpouring of emotion by the narrator
4) ‘released a song bird from its cage / Later a single dove flew from the pear tree’
- Symbolises son leaving to be free but in danger
- ‘cage’ signifying his former domestic life seems very contrictive and oppressive.
- Another interpretation of this metaphor is that the mother is releasing her emotions which she has bottled up as though they were caged
- A ‘dove’ is a symbol of peace and often for new life. The fact that that it is a single dove could foreshadow something bad happening to the man as this sense of isolation creates a sense of broken hope.
5) ‘I listened, hoping to hear your playground voice catching on the wind’
- Poem ends witha sad metaphor
- She misses the timew when her son was still little and playing in the playground, all the memories are flooding back to her
- Links leaving the army with leaving for school
Her grief at saying goodbye to her son going to war is an extended metaphor, particularly of the fear and anxiety in sending the child out into the world/war, just like sending him to school, which is a MUNDANE COMPARISON, nervous sending him to school but more scared if he dies
Context for Poppies
JANE WEIR
- Had two sons that may have influenced her desire to explore what causes young boys to go to war and fight
POPPIES
- They grew on battlefields and became a symbol of remembrance in 1921. Armistice Sunday also became a way to remember WW1. Weir uses these symbols to establish from the outset that the poem is an act of remembrance
Form and structure of Poppies
TONE OF REMEMBRANCE FROM THE START
- Memorial service
DRAMATIC MONOLGUE
- Second person to address the son but never directly addresses their son however, he never replies, implying that he is no longer there which creates a sense of death and loss.
FREE VERSE
- No rhyme scheme and variety in stanza length. Shows that these are the speaker’s uncensored thoughts.
- Outpouring of emotion or a stream of consciousness and lack of control
ENJAMBMENT
- Gives the sentences a fragmented feeling which alludes to the narrator having to grasp at incomplete memories
Key themes in Poppies
- Maternal affection
- A mother’s grief is explored to reveal the unconventional victims of conflict
- She gains solace from remembering him
- How one cannot let go
- Consequences of war
Poems to compare with Poppies
REMAINS
- S: Psychological consequences of conflict are due to guilt and loss. Memory extends the impact of conflict. Both show how the effects of war are damaging and painful
- D: Remains is PTSD and Poppies is the memory of mother and son
