Tony Harrison - 'V'

Question 1

What does the title itself mean?

Answer 1

Deliberately means many things
V for victory
Explores themes of opposition and division

Question 2

Analysis of the epigraph

Answer 2

Arthur Scargill quote - he was president of the National Union of Mineworkers from 1981 to 2002
Quotation echoes sentiments of the importance of being able to be confident in speech to defend personal and political interests. Could relate to the limited articulacy of the skinhead in the poem and the desire of the speaker to act as a mouthpiece for the working class

Question 3

“Butcher, publican, _____ and now me, ____”

Answer 3

“Baker.” “Bard”
Analysis - wry humour and self-conscious awareness of hi own occupation being different to that of family members

Question 4

“We’ll all be _____ together in the ____”

Answer 4

“Thrown.” “Pit.”
Analysis - the mines unite the people, as does death. It is the mines run under everything and is the one thing they have in common, just like their shared British heritage

Question 5

“The places I learned ______, and learned ______, and left, the ground where ______ ________ play.”

Answer 5

“Latin” “Greek” “Leeds United”
Juxtaposition of his two cultures. The man who studied classics is worlds away from those who use football to give their lives meaning
Harrison often derogatorily describes WC and diminishes them to skins or football fans

Question 6

“Which makes them lose their ______ of ____-______.”

Answer 6

“Sense” “Self-esteem”
Supporting a football team gives identity to those who have nothing else to be passionate about, when their team fails to bring success, they have nothing. This causes anger and they feel the need to do something i.e. tombstone graffiti (mindless protest about the state of their life)

Question 7

“A ____________ of blunt four-letter ______.”

Answer 7

“Repertoire” “Curse”
Carefully chosen lines about public service, wartime sacrifice and faith in God now stand beside curse words.
Sense of community which previous generations felt has disappeared, with only a vacuum of alienation and suppressed violence left behind

Question 8

“His ______ best ever winger, ______, swerver”

Answer 8

“Team’s” “Dribbler”
Certain irony - no adoring crowds to witness and appreciate such skill and athleticism
Poorly educated “sprayer master” can only use his “flourished tool” in this pointless repetition of a symbol of aggression

Question 9

“I helped ____________ V on a ______ wall”

Answer 9

“Whitewash” “Brick”
Repeated V sprayed on headstones gives rise to the speaker’s thinking about what that letter has signified in the past and present
Not vandalism - V contributed to victory celebrations at the end of WW2

Question 10

“Resigned/ to ____ from his ______ what his past never ____”

Answer 10

“Hope” “Future” “Found”
Human beings find happiness elusive and feel the need to pursue causes which seem to offer a solution to their discontents
The National Front, line 83, was a serious threat to racial harmony at the time but people still chose to join it - mindless protest/anger?

Question 11

“Flying ______ once or twice a ____”

Answer 11

“Visits” “Year”
Like the banker in stanza 9 whose “children and grand-children went away”
The speaker experiences feelings of guilt for these long absences, acknowledging that the neglected state of the cemetery is as much his “fault” as those who vandalise it
Sense of passing an age where family and personal relationships were cultivated and now there only seems to be dislocation - in geography and spirit

Question 12

“Insignia in ____ dwarf the ___”

Answer 12

“Neon” “Lads”
Highlights the power corporations hold over the individual. Also suggests that ordinary people are enslaved by corporate entities and consumer capitalism

Question 13

“Arms are ______ for the ______ ruling ____”

Answer 13

“Hoisted” “British” “Class”
UC power underpinned by “genteel aggro”
Speaker means the physical force the armed service and police use to suppress any threats to the existing social order

Question 14

“The ______ of last century”
“The grocer ____________ aersolled”

Answer 14

“Pitman’s” “Broadbent’s”
Specifying of defiled gravestones contrasts the dignity and stability of working class culture in past generations with the anger and anonymity of the present
Speaker struggles to understand what lies behind these pointless acts and suggests it is a gesture of defiance of common morality

Question 15

What effect does the interruption have on line 170 have ob the reader?

Answer 15

Jolts the reader from the contemplative, nostalgic mood which has prevailed so far and plunging them into the midst of a clash of assumptions and perspectives

Question 16

“Well ______ urn”

Answer 16

“Wrought.”
Speaker is regretful and for his breach between himself and his mother and now he imagines placing a poem in his mother’s coffin
Ironic allusion to the title of a seminal work of literary criticism by Cleanth Brooks. It obviously means a lot to the speaker but would have meant nothing to his mother

Question 17

“This ______ word”

Answer 17

“Skin’s”
Speaker is confronting an embodiment of the presences who are assumed to have despoiled the graves and who appears to know the speaker as well as he knows himself

Question 18

“The ______ that je est is __________ you.”

Answer 18

“Autre” “Fucking”
The speaker asserts that the skinhead is the force, the otherness, that drives him to write
Harrison may be attempting to give his poetry protest powers by aligning himself with Rimbaud (19th century poet)

Question 19

“______ Hugh _______”
“Covered __________ and audience with ____”

Answer 19

“Smooth” “Gaitskell”
LAB MP for South Leeds, represented Harrison. Labour is stereotypically a WC party and the fact it never convinced the speaker suggests that he is somewhat on the fringes, unrepresented by mainstream political movements
“Orchestra” “Spray”
Speaker bolsters his credentials as a WC rebel.
The speaker seems to be putting himself forward to the skinhead as someone who also rebels and feels marginalised from the political process

Question 20

“It’s not ______ we need in this ___ war.”

Answer 20

“Poetry” “Class”
Depth of speakers doubts as to the potential of poetry to act as a catalyst for meaningful social change
This phase of the poem suggests that the speaker feels he deserves the derision of the skinhead and that of the marginalised WC he embodied

Question 21

“The ________ within”

Answer 21

“Enemies”
Remark made by Margaret Thatcher in 1984, post-Falklands - referring to the members of the NUM and militant factions of trade unions
Referring to conflicts within his own psyche. He empathises with the marginalised WC but knows he can no longer identify with the new generation of alienated, un-politicised young men (embodied by skinhead)

Question 22

“The ______ that can’t be whole until they ______”

Answer 22

“Heart” “Unite””
The “heart” is broken because he consistently lives in between - perhaps he uses himself to symbolise how classes can’t work together
Uses liminal imagery to represent how he’s stuck between two classes - Leeds has become liminal because he only stops there for a short time before going back to his life

Question 23

“Almost the time for ______ I’d better ____”

Answer 23

“Ghosts” “Scram”
surprising admission of vulnerability when he admits to feeling unsettled
“Ghosts” could suggest he is haunted by the past or feels guilt for abandoning his WC heritage

Question 24

“Still years away from being ____ or ____”

Answer 24

“Skald” “Skin”
Speaker fears for the future of WC kids
“Skald” denotes a poet in Old Norse culture who celebrated heroic deeds in battle
Will the kids grow up to be articulate voices of their community or will they be engulfed by the nihilism of the skinhead?

Question 25

“Kashmir ______ Club that was the _____”

Answer 25

“Muslim” “Co-op”
Rapidly changing face and cultural makeup of the city, led to the speaker’s father becoming disorientated
Supportive network for the older generation disappeared which led to a rejection of the “coloured chaps” in the city which further explores societal divisions

Question 26

“Home to my _____”

Answer 26

“Woman”
She remains nameless and voiceless in the poem - perhaps the speaker doesn’t view women as people
Women are reduced to their purpose (“Mam” “Bride” etc) which suggests that women only exist to serve men

Question 27

“Perished __________ from the ___”

Answer 27

“Vegetation” “Pit”
When the speaker is at home, he forgets all of his problems and feels calmed by his wife
It is only in the intimacies of personal relationships that a sense of healing wholeness can be found

Question 28

“Leave with the worn ______ one _____ ‘v’”

Answer 28

“UNITED” “Small”
Symbolises the speaker’s hope for a future society with no divisions

Question 29

“Cling to their ________ and won’t _____ them free”

Answer 29

“Blossoms” “Shake”
“Blossoms” are an extended metaphor for the boys and how the speaker hopes for a day when WC boys can achieve their full potential without being limited to their class