War Photographer Flashcards
How does beginning and end unsettle reader
‘In his dark room he is finally alone (trochaic pentameter)
With spools of suffering set out in ordered rows’ (iambic)
‘From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where (trochaic pentameter)
he earns his living and they do not care’ (iambic pentameter)
‘Dark room’ ‘finally alone’
Dark room is symbolism for him: dark person?
Or just recording dark events?
‘Finally’
Pleased to be alone
Doesn’t think men can be good because of what he’s seen
‘Spools of suffering set out in ordered rows’
Sibilance (sinister)
What he’s doing is sinister: public observer
Grave yard imagery: profit from death or exposing death
‘Priest preparing to intone a mass’
Plosives: violent sound links to how people died
‘Priest’ - godly- ironic because he’s recording death
‘Mass’- religious ceremony or mass slaughter
Get reader to question god?
‘Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.
‘Belfast’- part of city
‘Beirut’- city
‘Phnom penh’ -country
‘All flesh is grass’- excuse death - we are born to die so we shouldn’t complain about death- death is good
Because Duffy already suggested there is no god so treating all flesh as grass is an alternate tragedy (treating human beings as if they are no more than grass- worthless to photographer?
Death no longer got the power to shock him
Why is death not shocking the photographer ironic?
He wants to feel the pain of death because he wants his readers to feel the pain because he wants war to stop.
Ironic consequence that he’s no longer able to feel pain
Sacrificing his own humanity to make readers more human
‘a half-formed ghost. He remembers the cries
of this mans wife, how he sought approval’
‘Half formed ghost’ man in picture is dead
He’s evidently not looking at dying man but wife-
‘Cries’ at the end of the line to emphasis how she’s feeling and contrasts that with his own feelings ‘seeking approval’- asking permission to photograph execution
Approval isn’t given- takes photograph anyway
Moral dilemma- is he taking photo to show how horrific war is to prevent it or is there an intrusion on private grief- stealing something that doesn’t belong to him?
‘The reader’s eye balls prick
with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers’
Internal rhyme -makes line feel jolly
Ironic- they should be feeling shock and horror
Contrasts with emotion that should be tears:
‘Prick’
Suggests how few the tears are- don’t fully form- no emotion
The photograph for which he ‘sought approval’ to take didn’t have desired result -
Readers forget it completely by washing it out ‘bath’ ‘pre-lunch beers’
Modern people ignore suffering and use alcohol to not face their consciousness.
What is photographers life presented as?
A tragedy
He’s lost his own ability to feel (all flesh is grass) / has become a loner (finally alone) In order to change the world.
His desired result hasn’t happened, people ignoring it (‘eyeballs prick with tears’)
All his efforts have been for nothing.
Ironic ending
‘From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where
he earns his living and they do not care.’
Rhyming couplet at the end suggests completion
Ironic because there’s nothing complete about what the photographer feels (impassively- no feeling) the war photographer has been destroyed by his role + is unable to feel pleasure coming home or pleasure in providing service in war (don’t know whether he’s coming back or going)
What’s poem about - how
The irony that he earns his living by feeding limited emotion in people.
And while he’s living they are dying
