War Photographer by Carol Ann Duffy Flashcards
“In his dark room he is finally alone”
The Photographer is pleased to be alone, contrasting the chaos of war.
(Stanza One)
“Spools of suffering set out into ordered rows”
The sibilance suggests anger, as he is spitting out his words.
The juxtaposition of, “suffering” and, “ordered” shows the Photographer trying to make sense of it.
(Stanza One)
“A priest preparing to intone a mass”
Teaching moral sense to readers of the newspaper.
Religions imagery.
(Stanza One)
“Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh in grass”
The plosives suggests harshness of photos, the minor sentences also emphasis this.
“All flesh in grass” is an allusion to the bible.
(Stanza One)
“Solutions slop in trays”
Sibilance and onomatopoeia shows the quietness of the room further suggesting how alone he is.
(Stanza Two)
“beneath his hands, which did not tremble then// though seem to now.”
This highlights that the photographer has been through trauma and PTSD from his travelling.
(Stanza Two)
“fields which don’t explode beneath the feet // of running children in nightmare heat”
This comparison of, “Rural England” suggests that the photographer believes we are ignorant to the pain some have to go through in war zones.
The imagery causes an uncomfortable image in the readers head.
(Stanza Two)
“a half-formed ghost.”
The metaphor highlights the distance between the reader and the people photographed. That to the reader they will never be anything more than a, “half-formed ghost”.
The caesura followed by this metaphor suggests that the people photographed will never be anything more to them.
(Stanza Three)
“blood stained into foreign dust”
This highlights the amount of people die, and how people out of war zones a unaware.
Additionally shows how the reputation of the country is stained.
(Stanza Three)
“A hundred agonies in black-and-white”
This suggests that the public back home can no longer escape the truth.
“A hundred agonies” highlights the amount of pain in war zones mentally and physically
(Stanza Four)
“The readers eyeballs prick // with tears between the baths and the pre lunch beers”
The adjective, “prick” implies that the only pain that they go through is small in comparison to the people in war zones.
The internal rhyme makes it seem light hearted and the reader still doesn’t care.
(Stanza Four)
Why has Duffy used a regular number of lines in each stanza?
Duffy has used 4 stanzas and 6 lines, this makes the poem seem controlled. This reflects the war photographer’s job; trying to impose order on the chaos of war to make it palatable for the reader and be temporarily moved and then forget.
Why has Duffy written it in 3rd person?
To create distance between the reader and the photographer.
What contextual dental could you use?
Duffy was friends with Don Mcullin and Phillip Jones Griffins which are famous war photographer’s
