visiting hour Flashcards
“the hospital smell”
first thing he noticed
“combs my nostrils”
personification
“green and yellow”
adjectives, gives idea of sickness
“what seems a corpse”
looks like a dead body, shows maccaig is only thinking about death
“trundled into a lift”
onomatopoeia
“vanishes heavenward”
metaphor, morgue is in basement
“corpse” “heavenward”
gives idea maccaig can only think of desth
“i will not feel, i will not feel”
word choice, repetition, shows he’s trying to avoid his feelings, he’s only been watching things so far
“nurses walk lightly, swiftly”
adverbs, tribute poem to the nurses looking after his sister
“here and up and down and there”
prepositions, showing the nurses are everywhere they are needed, describes how good they are at their jobs/how hard they work
“carrying their burden of so much pain”
metaphor, the pain the nurses feel must be exhausting, weigh them down - heavy/tiring
“so many deaths” “so many farewells”
repetition, showing that it happens all the time for the nurses
“their eyes still clear”
word choice, showing the nurses have no self pity and they’re very brave and strong
“ward 7”
sentence of its own, to show he’s reading the sign for the ward, stops abruptly knowing he will have to deal with his pain
“she lies in a white cave of forgetfulness”
metaphor, quiet, room painted white, silent, no windows, so heavily medicated she can’t remember what’s going in, drifts in and out of consciousness
“a withered hand trembles on its stalk”
metaphor, dying plant, shrivelled, dehydrated, very weak, once beautiful
“a glass gang is fixed, not guzzling bit giving”
metaphor, gives idea of vampire, painful process
“distance of pain”
metaphor, no physical distance between them but huge metaphorical distance of pain, can’t communicate
“she smiles a little”
she is aware that someone is there, comforting for maccaig
“black figure”
she isn’t aware of who it actually is
“who clumsily rises”
gets up to leave at the end of visiting hour, “clumsily” shows shaking, trembling, probably crying
“in the round swimming waves of a bell”
metaphor, end of visiting hour a bell rings, water/tears, waves of grief
“dizzily goes off”
adverb
“growing fainter, not smaller”
highly medicated patient sees shadow leaving, fades from view
“books that will not be read”
he brings presents like books, but now thinks she might die and not read them
“fruitless fruits”
brings fruit in hope she gets better to eat them, alliteration & oxymoron, fruitless = pointless because she’s too sick to eat
