The Gun By Feaver Flashcards
How does the Poem being and what does this suggest?
-begins in media res
-present continuous verb ‘bringing’ suggests ongoing change to house, couple + gun
-a repetitive action that catalyses change progressively
How is the poem ambiguous at the start and what does this imply?
-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.
‘Bringing a gun into a house/changes it’
-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
‘Like something dead/itself’
-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
What is the first stanza like?
-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
Analysis of ‘at first…then’
-adverbial phrase builds narrative style + suspense + anticipation of the hunt
How is the progression from novice to experience lexical contrasted in second stanza?
-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
What is the significance of “tress in the garden’
-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
What does ‘perforating’ suggest?
-progression to destruction + damage as well as time + objects
-perforations are holes, damage but not obliterations
How are the perforations metaphorical?
-make objects malleable - metaphor for nature of relationship changing as gun used or husbands growing mastery
What is the stark juxtaposition between ‘tins’ and ‘rabbit’
-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
How does the paradox become central to the poems message?
-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
Analysis ‘then a rabbit shot/clean through the head’
-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
How does stanza 3 also build the narrative style?
-adverbs continue with ‘soon’ building narrative style, climax of hunt + progression of husbands mastery of gun
How does the stanzas form/structure reveal how the wife feels?
-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
What is the effective of the fricatives, assonance, dissonance, consonance + approximants in first half of stanza 3?
-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
What is the effect of enjambment + caesura in stanza 3?
-sentence brevity - conveying confusion
-ambiguity displaying conflicted voice of wife but certainly directed at husband through use of pronoun ‘you”
What does th sibilance of ‘spring in your step’ create?
-show of how celebratory wife + husband now perceive relationship + gun
-juxtaposition to destructive power + nature of gun
What does the caesurial pause + simile of ‘;your eyes gleam like when sex was fresh’ suggest?
-reflect her decisions making process - recognises nostalgic + revitalising effect gun has
-loaded sensuality of stanzas primality reaches climactic inescapable Volta
How is the husbands persona developed here?
-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
How does this contrast to the man in stanza 2?
-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
What does the last stanza create?
-sung,e end stopped like creates cyclical structure to initial couplet - wife has rather judgement of gun + accepts its revitalising life-giving destructive paradox
What does the final stanza line ‘a gun brings a house alive’ suggest about the wife?
-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’)
What does the lexical symmetry of ‘bringing/brings’ convey?
-her certainty now where there was hesitation
-sense she claims ownership over narrative now - leading to shift in pronouns in final stanza
What does the change in line length suggest?
-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
What is the battle of the poem about?
-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
What does her acceptance suggest?
-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
