Visiting hour

Question 1

What are the two common themes throughout the poem?

Answer 1

Facing death and isolation

Question 2

“The hospital smell combs my nostrils.”

Answer 2

Sensory image. Helps to put the reader in McCaigs shoes

Question 3

“Green and yellow corridors.”

Answer 3

Word choice gives the quote a sickly feeling due connotations of being in a hospital

Question 4

“What seems a corpse is trundled into a lift and vanishes heavenward”

Answer 4

Enjambment Used to emphasise the final words to follow the theme of death in the poem

Question 5

“I will not feel, I will not feel.”

Answer 5

Shows how MacCaig is trying to suppress his emotions

Question 6

“Not until I have to.”

Answer 6

Shows MacCaig’s struggle to control his emotions

Question 7

“Ward 7.”

Answer 7

Shows MacCaig’s hesitation to enter to see his dying relative shows his fear of seeing them

Question 8

“ A withered hand

trembles on its stalk.”

Answer 8

Metaphor comparing the arm to a stalk that’s wasting away and the hand to a leaf