visiting hour Flashcards
Themes
Death, mortality, coping with emotions
Structure
Free verse
Stanzas get longer as he faces his emotions
Tone
Anguish, suppression, bleak
Combs my nostrils
Personification/ metaphor of the strength of the smell
Synestesia - smell becomes a physical force
Nostrils
Synecdoche - as if body and mind are detached from each other - he is not accepting what is coming, not letting emotions in
Bobbing along
Connotations of joy carefree. He is ready to face his emotions
Green and yellow
Connotations of sickness - the patients and nerves
Seems
Presumption
Corpse
Introduces the idea of death and expectation of death
Trundled
Undignified - death is common
Heavenward
Connotations of the afterlife, the beyond
Hospital is the place between life and death
I will not feel, I will not
Shows his desperation not let his emotions overcome him
I have to
Until he sees her or she dies
Nurses walk lightly, swiftly,
Change from his struggle. Nurses ability to cope
Grace, elegance to their movements association with angels
Here and up and down and there,
Syadetic list (repetition of and)
Makes them seem ever present
Their slender waists miraculously
Physically superhuman, miracles
Carrying their burden
Metaphor, slight but emotionally strong they carry the weight of their emotions but it’s their job
Of so much pain, so
Repetition of so - disbelief at their ability to cope
So many farewells
Repetition of so = disbelief at their ability to cope
Farewells = possible belief in the afterlife
Ward 7. She lies
Short sentence reflects the shocking illness
White cave of forgetfulness
Metaphor - shes in the space between life and death. She is losing her grip on reality possibly because of strong pain relief
A withered hand
Trembles on its stalk
Metaphor- arm being compared to a dying plant, life is slipping visibly away
Eyes move
Behind eyelids too heavy
To raise
Emphasises their fragility and weakness
A glass fang is fixed
Metaphor: drip, giving medicine
Alliteration conveys pain and violence
Not guzzling but giving
Looks horrific but is supplying her with life
Continues monster/ vampire imagery
Distance shrinks
Literally he is coming closer to them
Distance of pain
Barrier of illness- they will never be as close as they once were
Can cross
Alliteration suggests the finality of the visit
She smiles
Faint sign of life
Black figure
World reduced to black and white
She doesn’t recognise him
Suggestion of the grim reaper
- is that who she is expecting?
- she is close to that point
Clumsily
Physical response to the meeting. He is overwhelmed
Round swimming waves of a bell
Synesthtesia, he is discombobulated
Dizzily
Physical response to the meeting. He is overwhelmed
Growing fainter,
In memory, fading away
Fruitless fruits
Alliteration, oxymoron, pointless, wont be eaten, only heading towards death. Draws parallels to the patient
