the lammas hireling Flashcards
‘I’d still a…
…light heart and a heavy purse’
What is the AO2? ‘I’d still a light heart and a heavy purse’
Key motif of money, juxtaposition introduces a positive, celebratory tone, suggesting the speaker is brightened by his positive negotiation
What is the AO2? ‘cattle doted on him’
The hireling’s natural affinity for animals intends to foreshadow his own inhuman identity and convey a sense of harmony
What is the AO2? ‘fat as cream’
The simile intends to convey the bountiful harvest the hireling brings
‘Then one…
…night, disturbed from dreams of my dear late wife’
What is the AO2? ‘Then one night, disturbed from dreams of my dear late wife’
Abrupt change in tone, emphasised by plosive alliteration, foreshadows the sudden change to come, night acts as a metaphor for taboo acts that must be hidden from society.
How does the significance of light change throughout the poem?
‘I’d still a light heart’
‘stock still in the light from the dark lantern’ - oxymoron, meaning of lights shifts from happiness to uncertainty
‘in a sack that grew lighter at every step’ - light now represents a disruption of the natural order
‘I knew him…
…a warlock, a cow with leather horns’
‘By its yellow…
witness I saw him fur over like a stone mossing’
What is the AO2? ‘By its yellow witness I saw him fur over like a stone mossing’
Personification of the moon conveys the speaker’s wrongdoing/transgression of nature, simile presents the transformation as a natural process that has been transgressed
What is the moon symbolic of?
‘The moon came out’, gothic symbol of transformation
What verbs are used to present the transformation as unusual and unsettling?
‘lovely head thinned’, ‘top lip gathered’, ‘eyes rose like bread’
‘I don’t…
…dream but spend my nights casting ball from half-crowns’
What is the AO2? ‘I don’t dream but spend my nights casting ball from half-crowns’
Killing of the hare has radically transformed the farmer’s life, who now feels the need to constantly unburden himself. Making bullets from coins, reiterates his paranoia.
‘It has been…
…an hour since my last confession’
What is the AO2? ‘It has been an hour since my last confession’
Speaker isn’t just guilty of a crime, but of transgressing the natural world, trapped in an endless cycle of repentance
