The Gun By Feaver

Question 1

How does the Poem being and what does this suggest?

Answer 1

-begins in media res
-present continuous verb ‘bringing’ suggests ongoing change to house, couple + gun
-a repetitive action that catalyses change progressively

Question 2

How is the poem ambiguous at the start and what does this imply?

Answer 2

-intentional ambiguity around indefinite articles ‘a’ + impersonal pronoun ‘it’ creates tension between gun, couple, house
-convey feelings blame caution reluctance conflict uncertainty disruption disharmony unnatural etc.

Question 3

‘Bringing a gun into a house/changes it’

Answer 3

-enjambment first coupler creates delay + further tension
-also ambiguity about guns presence + impact - uncanny, mysterious, powerful
-revelation of line 2 is focus of poem: change + paradox

Question 4

‘Like something dead/itself’

Answer 4

-enjambment simile creates paradox/irony
-the gun is a purveyor of death to nature + has been created from destroyed nature
-the gun also as this point is entirely passive — is it man that is destructive + not the gun

Question 5

What is the first stanza like?

Answer 5

-replete with tension between phallic imagery of gun + domestic imagery of kitchen
-innuendo/insinuation of imagery of gun could be mocking husbands impotence or hailing start of revitalised sexual desire between couple

Question 6

Analysis of ‘at first…then’

Answer 6

-adverbial phrase builds narrative style + suspense + anticipation of the hunt

Question 7

How is the progression from novice to experience lexical contrasted in second stanza?

Answer 7

-colloquial modifier ‘just practice’ plays down significance of gun use
-‘clean through’ heightens this with triumphant celebratory tone that reveals prowess of husband
-‘then’ — reveals wife’s shock at how fast husband has given in to guns destructive power

Question 8

What is the significance of “tress in the garden’

Answer 8

-garden is a liminal place - tame domestic world + wild natural world
-reaver transitions the settings from domestic sphere to natural order to show blurring of these boundaries as man exerts dominion over nature

Question 9

What does ‘perforating’ suggest?

Answer 9

-progression to destruction + damage as well as time + objects
-perforations are holes, damage but not obliterations

Question 10

How are the perforations metaphorical?

Answer 10

-make objects malleable - metaphor for nature of relationship changing as gun used or husbands growing mastery

Question 11

What is the stark juxtaposition between ‘tins’ and ‘rabbit’

Answer 11

-inanimacy of ‘tins’ juxtaposed to ‘rabbit’ - furthers tension of stanza between man made object + natural world
-man’s destruction, wielding manmade + natural gun further destroying natural world

Question 12

How does the paradox become central to the poems message?

Answer 12

-challenges notions of death, violence, destruction, gun use, masculinity + relationships with nature + each other
-reaver highlights contradictions to consider our judgement + aligning our views with speakers uncertainty

Question 13

Analysis ‘then a rabbit shot/clean through the head’

Answer 13

-vivid imagery to depict brutal act of violence
-image conveys sense of abruptness + finality highlighting destructive power of the gun, the husband + impact of violence on the innocent

Question 14

How does stanza 3 also build the narrative style?

Answer 14

-adverbs continue with ‘soon’ building narrative style, climax of hunt + progression of husbands mastery of gun

Question 15

How does the stanzas form/structure reveal how the wife feels?

Answer 15

-Constant enjambment + end clipped lines creates sense of nervousness + anxiety
-erratic narrative - wife is unnerved about the gun + husbands mastery of it
-but towards end sense of acceptance - ambiguous

Question 16

What is the effective of the fricatives, assonance, dissonance, consonance + approximants in first half of stanza 3?

Answer 16

-Create altogether disconcerting tone
-harsher discordant sounds create wife’s voice to be disturbed by excessive violence
-yet softer harmonious sounds convey her waning resolve towards gun/husband or her acceptance of it/admiration

Question 17

What is the effect of enjambment + caesura in stanza 3?

Answer 17

-sentence brevity - conveying confusion
-ambiguity displaying conflicted voice of wife but certainly directed at husband through use of pronoun ‘you”

Question 18

What does th sibilance of ‘spring in your step’ create?

Answer 18

-show of how celebratory wife + husband now perceive relationship + gun
-juxtaposition to destructive power + nature of gun

Question 19

What does the caesurial pause + simile of ‘;your eyes gleam like when sex was fresh’ suggest?

Answer 19

-reflect her decisions making process - recognises nostalgic + revitalising effect gun has
-loaded sensuality of stanzas primality reaches climactic inescapable Volta

Question 20

How is the husbands persona developed here?

Answer 20

-building of final image ‘king of death’ - primality of husband conveyed through dynamic verbs
-he is intimidating ‘run + flown’, he is base as he ‘reeks’ + confident when he ‘tramples’
-transformed into an alpha male

Question 21

How does this contrast to the man in stanza 2?

Answer 21

-he “lay(s)’ the gun out
-dominance + superiority in his actions now
-listing of his victories hails his conquests over natural world
-something unnerving that sex is the final coup in the list - sexual dominance over the woman

Question 22

What does the last stanza create?

Answer 22

-sung,e end stopped like creates cyclical structure to initial couplet - wife has rather judgement of gun + accepts its revitalising life-giving destructive paradox

Question 23

What does the final stanza line ‘a gun brings a house alive’ suggest about the wife?

Answer 23

-she is justifying her positions trying to clarify need for destruction to validate loss of nature, morality, ethics for price of life, vitality, satisfaction + their relationship (symbolised by the ‘house’)

Question 24

What does the lexical symmetry of ‘bringing/brings’ convey?

Answer 24

-her certainty now where there was hesitation
-sense she claims ownership over narrative now - leading to shift in pronouns in final stanza

Question 25

What does the change in line length suggest?

Answer 25

-ironic way to show how relationship still not balanced
-brevity attributed to wife’s declaration is about life feeling ‘alive’ now rather than anything proactive

Question 26

What is the battle of the poem about?

Answer 26

-seems to have been with her sense of acceptance, morals, ethics + judgement rather than involvement in actions of gun
-only when has reconciled her inner conflict she can participate + assume responsive only for destructive of nature herself

Question 27

What does her acceptance suggest?

Answer 27

-claiming husbands narration as her own
-she can’t fight against patriarchy anymore as it’s too strong so she just has to accept it + conform