poppies Flashcards
‘crimped petals, spasms of paper red.’
juxtaposition: ‘crimped petals’
↳ conflict within mother as she struggles to hold back her emotions
↳ destruction of something beautiful (her child) -> war ruins innocent things
verb: ‘spasms’
↳ uncontrollable emotions
‘smoothed down your shirt’s upturned collar, steeled the softening of my face.’
semantic field of order:
↳ containment of emotions
↳ acting strong in front of son
adjective: ‘upturned’
↳ son is unprepared from war
sibilance:
↳ shows mothers tenacity
‘all my words flattened, rolled, turned into felt; slowly melting.’
semantic field of change/distortion (shape):
↳ emphasises her reluctance to allow change and let her mother leave
↳ her words are changing as she has to appear strong & unfazed
enjambment:
↳ continuous, pervading helplessness
the process of making felt is building up materials -> built up sadness
(weir worked in textiles, may show how people deal with grief in ways that relate to them)
caesuras:
↳ mimicks struggle to speak
↳ so overcome by her emotions that she can’t explain the ones she’s feeling
‘threw up open, the world overflowing like a treasure chest.’
violent verb: ‘threw’
↳ contrasts to how her words were slowly melting
↳ suddenly aggressive -> catharsis
↳ wants the process to be over quickly
caesura:
↳ emphasises previous actions
personification: ‘world overflowing’
↳ see sees emotion in everything due to her overwhelming sadness
simile: ‘like a treasure chest’
↳ propaganda of war, to the son going to war is exciting
overwhelming -> overstimulated
‘a split second and you were away, intoxicated’
sibilance: ‘split second’
↳ emphasises time & how painful those seconds were to her
‘intoxicated’
↳ intrigued by ear but naive to dangers
↳ propaganda
↳ lack of control
‘leaned against it like a wishbone’
simile: ‘like a wishbone’
↳ she defines herself with a wishbone (fragile)
↳ lucky (she hopes that her son isn’t dead
context:
-carol ann duffy asked jane weir to compose poems to raise awareness for the mistreatment & deaths of british soldiers in afghanistan & iraq
-she has two sons
-poppies (remembrance, hope) grew in battlefields
-author worked in textiles
-grew up through the troubles
structure:
-free verse
↳ emotions are flowing & uncontrollable
-long sentences & enjambment
↳ a tone as if she is rambling & trying to hold on to her son as long as possible
↳ fragmented speech as though she is struggling
form
dramatic monologue
↳ long speech by a single person
↳ speaker directly addresses their son, he never replies impling that he is no longer there which creates a sense of death and loss
↳ focus the listener on the mother
