Quotes - Visiting hour Flashcards
“bobbing along”
WC of ‘bobbing’ shows the speakers feelings of not being there creates impressions of boats and waves and suggests feelings of helplessness, he is being carried along
“corpse”
WC suggests the body has a relationship with life suggests they are close to death
“trundled”
WC suggests a lack of care or attention
“heavenward”
metaphor: literal meaning going upwards in a lift, deeper meaning going upwards to heaven/death
“i will not feel, i will not
feel, until
I have to”
Repetition: the poet is trying to convince himself that he will not feel - emotional internal monologue
“lightly, swiftly”
adverbs suggests an almost care free quality to their movements
“miraculously”
WC suggests it is astonishing to MacCaig that the nurses can deal with all the heart ache and death
“Burden”
suggests speaker is not able to understand how they can still work with all the deaths they see
“farewells”
has connotations of saying goodbye and embarking on a new journey. Nurses deal with death and move on
“white cave of forgetfulness”
Metaphor: this reveals the isolation and lack of any sensory awareness etc. it also emphasises how distant she is from speaker. physically they are close mentally they are not
“withered hand trembles on its stalk”
shows how fragile and delicate she is. Compares her to a dying flower
“heavy”
confirms patient is close to death WC suggests that even opening her eyes is a chore
“wasted”
emphasies the idea of death and decay
“fang” and “guzzling”
imagery : comparison of the drip to a vampire is shocking. It shows how frightening the speaker finds it.
- however, unlike a vampires fang which is deigned to drain blood, this needle is giving.
- nevertheless the harsh sound of the alternative ‘g’ conveys a sense of bitterness. the speaker feels the medicine is both illusive and ineffective
repetition of “distance”
He is physically close to her but he cant be close to her in an emotional sense. The repetition of distance emphasises how far apart they are no matter how close they were the illness has utterly divided them
