Structure Flashcards
- “The hospital smell”
Effective opening - grabs reader’s attention be referring to a very vivid and distinct sensory image(hospital smell) which the reader can relate to.
- “what seems a corpse/is trundled inta a lift and vanishes/heavenward”
Enjambment - emphasise last words of the lines, chosen to suggest the finality of death. “corpse” has connotations of absence of life and “vanishes” further stresses narrator’s view that death is absolute(MacCaig was an atheist)
3.”I will not feel, i will not feel, until/i have to”
Repetition - to create the impression of the narrator chanting to himself under his breath in order to avoid dealing with his emotions.
4.”Here and up and down and there”
Unusual syntax(word order is another eg of the narrator trying to lighten mood, while also stressing amount of nurses he sees. It suggests he is looking around to find a distraction from his thoughts.
5.”so much pain, so/many deaths,… /so many farewells”
Repetition of “so” stresses the frequency of the nurses’ unpleasant dealings, which supports the high esteem, perhaps envy, with which he regards the ability of the nurses to cope.
- “Ward 7”
A non-sentence is used to jolt the reader, just as the narrator is jolted by his arrival at the ward where the patient lies. This is the turning point of the poem, as the narrator has reached the patient and must bow face his emotions.
7.”a withered hand/trembles on its stalk”
Pronoun “it” is used to show the humanity of the woman has been diminished, suggesting the narrator doesnt feel she is truly alive anymore. Her bosy is merely an empty shell, while she is effectively dead.
8.”books that will not be read/and fruitless fruits”
Enjambment cause the last line to seem like a bitter addendum, which summarises the narrator’s despair at the hopelessness of his situation, and the isolation both he and his patient have suffered.
