The Gun Flashcards
1
Q
Structure
A
- uneven line and stanza length: unpredictable and ambiguous atmosphere especially on the first half of the poem when the effects of gun violence are not revealed
- use of end stopped line especially at the volta puts emphatical pressure onto key purpose points of the poem
- again, unpredictably written in free verse which mirrors the chaos of violence
2
Q
TITLE
A
- brief and ambiguous
- gun is capitalised showing that it is not mere object but holds significance as a physical presence, alludes to its importance in the household
3
Q
Bringing a gun into a house changes it.
A
- very ambitious beginning to the poem later to be juxtaposed by the volta
- end stopped line puts emphatic pressure onto this sentence as it sets a president for the effects of the story.
- also, the end stop ends a sentence like a gun ends a life and thus the full stops can be seen as a reminder of the omnipresent effects of owning weaponary
4
Q
Colour imagery
A
- in the first stanza the gun is ‘grey’ as its purpose is ambiguous and thus morally grey.
- the first stanza also shows ‘green’ features to the household which shows the prescence of nature and peace and thus the gun has not yet taken over
- however in the final lines the gun is seen to be ‘black’ which signifies immorality and death
5
Q
Subversion of typical ideas of domesticity
A
- ‘lay it on the kitchen table’ alludes to food or cleaning and thus the gun is somewhere where it typically shouldn’t be, as if it is intruding the domestic sphere and shouldn’t be in a. Household
- the tins for practice which ‘dangle on an orange string’ again show how the guns desire takes over where laundry should be, the idea of blissful domesticity is overruled when violence is present
6
Q
Phallic imagery
A
- ‘jutting over’ and ‘long metal barrrel’
- violence is intrinsically linked to primitive desire just as sex is
- symbol of masculinity
7
Q
‘A rabbit shot clean through the head.’
A
- rabbits are typically symbols of fertility and innocence, thus the gun has disrupted natural order as it has disrupted the domestic peace
- stark and visceral image provides emphasis to the unpleasant nature of violence
- ‘clean’ suggests precision which implies despite the visceral and grotesque imagery the killer feels pleasure and satisfaction at this
- end stopped line marks a symbolic part of the poem as death has been introduced in
- this is an enjambed line which enacts the encounter between animal and human spheres and how humans are symbolic of destruction and cut off from the rest of nature
8
Q
‘The fridge fills with creatures’
A
- frickative alliteration provides irony because it should suggest fluidity and motion but instead the animals are dead, shows a distruption of natural order
- yes indeed as the fridge is part of the typical female domestic sphere and thus a household has been shifted
- the lexis ‘creatures’ instead of their identities strips down the animals to objects which they weren’t in the stanza prior, thus showing how violence can make one detached and mentally shifted
9
Q
Motif of rebirth
A
- lexis ‘spring’ is a double meaning as it underscores a human change and a rebirth due to their new possession of arms
- at the end of an enjambed line which draws attention to the human change undergoing
- simile ‘like when sex was fresh’ continues the motif and links the possession of violence intrinsically to human desire as did the earlier phallic imagery
-‘gunbrings a house alive’
-‘golden crocuses’ flowers are typically symbolic of rebirth. This may sugggest how the household has been brought together and revolutionised (see final stanza) by the introduction of violence or how the instinct to act in this way is intrinsic to mankind.
10
Q
Volta
A
-‘a gun brings a house alive’
- contrast to the ambiguity of the opening line, this has certainty
- plays into motif of rebirth and shows how one is changed
- paradoxal term as death is seen to be causing life- humans are intrinsically attracted to violence at the expense of others lives
11
Q
‘I join in’
A
- emphatically placed at the beginning of the stanza shows how violence is not specific to men or any individual but is instead a desire of all of man kind
- may also alludes to the complicity of females in a violent household
12
Q
‘Jointing slicing stirring and tasting’
A
- gerund verbs suggests frantic activity as if they are stimulated by killing
- sibilence and the song like harmonious sound furthers idea of unity brought together by violence
13
Q
‘King of death had arrived’
A
- reference to Celtic mythology in which the horned god cernucos was the god of death
- implies an offering has been made to him
- this further shows how death and violence has united and excited the couple as they are proud enough of their killings to share it with a deity
