the lammas hireling - ian duhig Flashcards
‘i’d still a light heart and a heavy purse’
sparse language - guilt
no emotion, empty, buys labour like they’re meaningless
‘struck so cheap’
‘struck’ is animalistic, showing the controversies and maltreatment of hirelings at the time
‘i grew fond of company that knew when to shut up’
more productive - good relationship
hints that a homo-erotic sexual liaison could have have developed
could show that in the confusion of the dream, he’s now sexually attracted to the hireling, or seeking company from the loss of his wife
imperative phrase that suggests the farmer is superior to the hireling, this could be what provokes the boy to turn on him and use his supposedly supernatural powers to his advantage - to confuse the farmer and make him riddled with guilt
‘i hunted down her torn voice to his pale form’
more animalistic than what he initially realised.
grown close to hireling and is an act of desperation.
manipulation of grief and the affect it has on the dream.
‘torn’ could resemble how he can’t cope no they’re no longer physically together, and how he relied on that closeness.
‘light from the dark lantern’
oxymoron
‘light’ no longer symbolises hope and opportunity from his perspective, but something dangerous and ominous that taints his dream.
taboo of the supernatural.
antithesis, sheds no light on the events from a personal recollection, which would be important in his and our understanding.
‘i knew him a warlock’
male equivalent of a witch, an element of the supernatural.
foreshadows the myth of turning into a hare, linking with ideas of traditional folklore.
‘muckle sorrow’
archaic language
common legend of turning into a hare upon death
farmer potentially wants sympathy from the reader’s perspective who is expected to make judgement throughout, and showing empathy through emotive abstract nouns like ‘sorrow’ is important to this.
‘blew the small hour through his heart’
shot him
becomes a metaphor for the onset of guilt that the action bestows upon him.
cataphoric of his confession, to create dramatic effect. becomes greater than a ‘small hour’ as he repeats the turn of events incessantly, suggesting insanity.
the shot going through his ‘heart’ shows no regard for humanity - no love or emotional presence, this act represents this and could reference his demolition of love and self-respect.
‘fur over like a stone mossing’
transforming
hissing - sibilance - evil - garden of eden
‘moon… yellow witness’
moon could be a symbol of hope, the farmer maybe beginning to understand some of the dream as he continues to go over it, but it acts to confuse him further into delirium instead.
‘yellow witness’ shows how the motif of light takes another transition: it’s now tainted through his perpetuating guilt.
‘sack grew lighter at every step’
transformation
inversion of reality, acts to show the confusing element to a dream, how it can never be replicated in the context of reality.
literally shows how the body is metamorphosing into the hare, as by the myth, but metaphorically links to the transitioning of his guilt from the moment he shot the hireling into what appears to be eternity.
‘light’ now embodies an entirely different meaning from those previously in the semantic field, to show how the situation is now physically existing to him as he continues to repeat it and become increasingly self-abasing, instead of only being representative of guilt.
‘spend my nights casting ball from half-crowns’
has to occupy and make an effort to distract himself from the otherwise torment.
a process in which someone makes more shot for their gun, reliving what he did as a process, hasn’t detached from what happened.
‘bless me , father, i have sinned. it has been an hour since my last confession’
severity of his actions
unable to gain peace of mind
structure
sestet - like a fairytale
enjambment - increases plot like quality
headlines
the sense of confusion
dreams have an alluring quality to them
the strange connection between man and monster
the sense of mystery created
the harsh reality contrasted to an idyllic dream
prolific guilt can manifest into a liminal and unclear existence
