A Y11 student analyses Eric extremely well.

What do you think is the importance of Eric and how does Priestley present him?

In the Edwardian era, England was steeped in hypocrisy and superficiality. Your step on the social hierarchy ladder was determined by your wealth and material possessions as opposed to your levels of kindness and moral reasoning.

We first see Eric’s character sitting at the edges of the tables whereas his Mother and Father are at opposite ends of the head of the table as if they were in thrones. This may make Eric feel like he can never become as superior as his Father and may also be a metaphor, for after the night’s events, Eric never becoming like his Father.

Eric’s character is quite complex as we see various sides of him throughout the play during various scenes.

When his Father has just been told about his importance in the life of Eva/Daisy, Birling justifies his own actions and states that there is nothing that could be done. Eric disagrees with him as he states “He could. He could have kept her on.” The word ‘kept’ here sounding very permanent to show us how there would be no mention of anyone getting sacked within his own business. Which would seem a very rebellious thing to say, especially coming from a middle class family, would be seen to be a very outlandish thing to do and very out of place for a middle class child. Although this shows us how Eric already has certain viewpoints that would agree with the Inspector and Eva as Gerald has also just heard these accusations but is still siding with Mr Birling. This shows how Eric must have some sort of moral conscience for the lesser classes before this event occurred.

I think at this point, we are supposed to feel a sense of sympathy towards Eric as he, during the play’s plot, is perceived to have a secret of his own, but he is at least looking as if he is feeling guilty with himself and is representing Eva and the working class when he states that his Father should have kept Eva within his business.

Eric questions his Father “was this recently?” which makes senses as he may be thinking that this girl may be the same one which he impregnated. At least he is seen to then be asking about the girl that we later find out to in fact be Eva.

When Eric asks if her firing from the business was the cause of her suicide, Birling tells Eric to “calm down and to not get excited”. This shows us again his dismissive nature even though he is being directly confronted of his actions. The word ‘excited’ here is perceived to be to do with a situation that was humorous as opposed to the actual situation: one of fatal consequences. This shows to us again of how    Birling doesn’t relate any of his doings to accumulate to the fatal demise of Eva. It also shows us of how dismissive he is of Eric’s question which was very acceptable and relevant at this stage of the play. As a bonded Father and Son may go into another room to discuss this, there is no more mention of Eric’s question from Birling and it seems like Eric’s enquiry has been dropped as quickly as Eva was dropped from the company in September of 1910.

I perceive JB, here, to be foreshadowing the later events to do with Eric and his Father. There are definite signs of tension between the two and it is obvious that they are not of a close-knit bond in which the lesser classes may depict the middle class families to be. There is always an ‘obligatory’ scene that tells us the secret of a character and about their murky past and it seems like Eric is already disgusted by one member of his family’s wrong doings.

This builds up much tension for the audience as we observe one after another, how the characters are being exposed to their murky past behaviour. We perceive how all members of the family have all done deeds they are ashamed of and each scene leaves the audience waiting to see what will be uncovered next. And as the play is perceived through three acts, the tension is built up throughout the play towards the final scene when all secrets have been revealed. This is metaphorical for how the middle class families are believed to be superior when they share all the same traits as the lower classes and there is no difference between the morals of the middle class and others.

During Eric’s confession part in the play, we see him try to make an attempt to make things okay for Eva, financially. When talking about the money he stole to give to Eva, he states: “until she refused to take any more.” This shows us how Eric has been financially stabilising Eva and has done all in his power to help make sure she was okay and has the necessities she needed.

I perceive JB to have shown this side of Eric to make us feel as if he is being responsible for his actions, as opposed to his Father who is refusing to mark his firing of any significance to the demise of Eva. We could say that Eric is being more mature than his Father and that his Father is very cowardly at the side of Eric, which could be seen as dramatic irony as his Father is always seated at the head of the table and is seen as ‘the head’.

Through Eric’s character, it is obvious that JB has the intention of changing the society in which they currently reside. He is in the position to manipulate Eric’s character to be one which is perceived to have empathy for the working class and Eva especially.

I also think that JB Priestley wants us to depict that it is Eric and Sheila’s generation that change the society as there is a political metaphor that the conservative government had been ruling during the First World War and continued for the Second World War which is depicting the thousands of deaths of Eva Smiths and John Smiths. When there is a new socialist labour party, this is seen as the era when the younger ones; such as Sheila and Eric are the leaders as far as businesses go etc, and so are in charge of helping there to be a better society for all the Eva Smiths and John Smiths out there.

A y11 student compares Come on Come Back and Hawk Roosting

Compare how the poets present the effect of conflict in ‘Come On, Come Back’ and one other poem.

Conflict would be mainly seen to be in physical fights and such arguments but conflict is also apparent in the poems ‘Come On, Come Back’ and ‘Hawk Roosting’. In these poems, we can interpret there to be much inner conflict within the stanzas.

The poems share themes of power, violence, death and delusion. There is a large semantic field of negativity in both poems, such as: ‘hooked’ ‘kills’ ‘tearing’ ‘death’ and ‘locked’ in ‘Hawk Roosting’. These words give us the image of a confident and strong force as we can almost hear the tearing heads of prey with the onomatopoeia of ‘tearing’.

COCB also shares this theme of death with the semantic field of ‘dead’ ‘icy’ ‘black’ ‘bitterly’ treacherous’ ‘seizing’ ‘enemy’ - this gives us the visualisation of a higher power’s grasp of Vaudevue which could be symbolism for the governmental power upon the country[s1] [KE2] . We see the symbolism with the quote: ‘ML5 Has left her just alive’. In this quote, we are aware that the government have been using the young girl soldiers and now we see how badly Vaudevue currently is. ‘ML5’ seems to be quite a strong force as when Smith puts: “has left her”, it sounds as if the ML5 has very human characteristics and we see Smith personifying the chemical. The word “just” here, makes the reader really visualise the girl to be near death, as opposed to how we would feel if the poet had wrote ‘has left her alive’. We see how the war is affecting the civilians and how it has impacted upon them.

‘Hawk Roosting’ can be viewed as simply a poem about nature as the quote: “The convenience of the high trees! The air’s buoyancy and the sun’s ray” shows us of what nature means to the hawk. When he talks about the trees, he talks about them being an ‘advantage’ to him which gives us the sense that the hawk is dependent upon the beauty of nature and is thankful for it.

There is also a large political metaphor in the ‘Hawk Roosting’ poem, that the hawk is metaphorical for bullies and political leaders, this could signify the bird’s inner weakness thus being the reason for the gradient downward slope of stanza length, representing the gradual growing weakness of the hawk.

We also see a gradual degrade of weakness within ‘Come On, Come Back’ as there could be said to be a look of a heartbeat in the stanza length, which represents the journey that she is going through and her coping with those conflicts, like in ‘Hawk Roosting’ as we see him losing power. As the poem comes to three shorter lines at the end and no more lines that would reflect the look of a pulse, this is metaphorical for the end of her journey eg: death. But it could also represent the end of the war that was currently going on that Vaudevue had to deal with.

The hawk’s manner could be metaphorical for the government’s ideologies: thinking that they are powerful when really, they are degrading. This links with ‘Come On, Come Back’ as the government may think that their tactics are winning them the war but in reality, it is killing many individuals of their country. There is a definite theme of delusion[s3] [KE4]  within the poems. There is language to support this as in HR, the poet states: “Nothing has changed since I began” and it is obvious that the Earth has drastically changing all the time. The word “nothing” shows to us of how strongly the hawk feels this way about his homeland and to him, there is no other interpretation. In COCB there is a sense of delusion with the quote: “the icy waters of the adorable lake”. The oxymoron here of the words “icy’ and ‘adorable’ shows us that it is Vaudevue’s mind-set that is perceiving the waters to be this way and that in reality, it’s the ‘icy’ waters which later ‘seize her in’ and ‘close above her head’. This can be blamed on the emotional stability of Vaudevue and shows to us how delusional she was being to have perceived the lake to be anything but dangerous.

We perceive there to be lots of enjambment used throughout the poems such as: “over the ground she goes” in COCB and “my flight is direct” in HR. This could be metaphorical for them both being on their journeys together and their lives flowing in similar directions.

Similarly within the individual stanzas, there seems to be no regular pattern there so in both poems we could say that there is inner conflict with their emotions and represents their personal changing views and individual ideologies.

The poems differ with their endings as the hawk is seen to be arrogantly delusional with the line “I am going to keep things like this.” The final ending of the full stop may be a glimpse of the hawk’s inner conflict as he tries to persuade himself that ‘I am fine’ and that ‘I’m not degrading, I am still strong.’ Whereas in ‘Come On, Come Back’ we see that the conflicting thoughts have been enough to end her life as she commits suicide at the end of the poem. We see this with the final line: ‘Come On, Come Back’. The end stopped line [s5] [KE6] here signifies the end of her conflicting thoughts and the end of her life.

These endings of the poems could mirror the titles of the poems. COCB could be perceived to be so because it is the favourite song of Vaudevue and the theme of thoughts from many people waiting for Vaudevue to ‘come on, Vaudevue, come back’.

‘Hawk Roosting’ could mirror the final words of the poem as the hawk, for me, has persuaded himself of his status and is then ‘roosting’: meaning here to congregate for rest or sleep; sound in conscience as he has blinded himself with his deluded ideologies.

---

 [s1]I think I would like to see you picking a longer quote to really analyse in detail now.  The semantic field work is great but to really push your grade it would be helpful to choose a juicy quote and go through how it shows that symbolism here.

 [KE2]Not sure if I have analysed enough of the quote??

 [s3]This is interesting – can you find language which supports this interpretation?

 [KE4]I’ve tried to do that J

 [s5]It would be better to call this an end stopped line as this would credit you for structure

 [KE6]Done J

Unseen Poetry. Do not panic.

In the Poetry Across Time exam, Section B is an unseen poem.

You need to answer in 30 minutes and get 18 marks.

Do not panic about this because you have analysed lots of poems independently and have all the skills you need already.

Think about how you usually analyse a poem when your teacher gives it to you: what do you do?

1. read it through carefully.  As far as you can try to 'hear' it in your head so the rhyme and rhythm is obvious to you.  Please do not read it out loud in the exam hall - this isn't going to make you very popular!
2. Now re-read the question: what do the exam board want you to pick out? There may well be a theme or a focus that they want you to write about.  Identify it and know what you're looking for.
3. then read it again.  This time do what you would in class: annotate it. Looking for key words and techniques. What is the poet trying to make you feel or think with the words chosen?
4. Write a response which directly answers the question asked and reflects the way you are responding to the poet's words. This might be the hard part, so you could use this method:

ARTWARS

So, what the poem is about, repeated ideas, tone, words, alliteration and other techniques, rhyme and rhythm and structure.

Or FLITS (form, language, intentions/ideas, themes, structure)

Either way, the examiner wants to see you can respond to the poet's central message and identify how the choice of words, structure and techniques achieves this.

A really good way to revise now would be to write down ALL the poetic language and structural techniques that you can think of.... Now, read your exercise book and search on the internet to find out ones you have forgotten.

Finally, you could practice responding to unseen poems and revise all the conflict cluster using this amazing resource from Verulam School.

Good luck!

Out of the Blue

This Higher poem has not yet been examined so it may be one to focus on. Do remember though that all poems may be examined and that you need to know them all in order to be able to compare effectively.

 

 

Are you able to identify: form?

Armitage's intentions?

A number of language techniques?

Three really juicy quotes that you could anlayse really well?

What the attitude to conflict is in this poem?

How you might compare it to other poems in the cluster?

 

Form in Poetry - what's it all about?

When you are writing about form you ought not panic, they're poems. That's the form.  Poetry is different to prose as the poet decides exactly how the poem looks on the page, line length and separation between stanzas.  If you mention structure then you might well be looking at form too.

However, there are specific forms of poetry and this post might help you with them.

• Flag - John Agard (foundation named poem) - this is similar to a shape poem as the lines are set out in such a way that the middle line is shorter which makes you think of a pennant flag which represents the 'Flag' in the title.  Also, the three line form might remind us of the tricolour set out pof many world flags (think France or the Netherlands).
• Extract of Out of the Blue - Simon Armitage - this is a dramatic monologue where Armitage adopts the voice and persona of an imaginary trader in the World Trade Centre.  This gives the poem a personal quality and makes the nature of the tragedy much closer.  We 'hear' the voice of someone who perished in 9/11 speaking directly to us.
• Mametz Wood - Owen Sheers - we could say that this poem is an elegy - a tribute to the dead soldiers.
• The Yellow Palm - Robert Mihinnick - this poem is a ballad.  Ballads are a traditional form of poetry which tend develop a story about ordinary people or a tragedy (think the ballads you did in KS3 - The Highwayman, The Ballad of Charlotte Dymond, The Pied Piper of Hamelin).  An important feature of a ballad is a refrain 'As I walked down Palestine Street' and repeated ideas - e.g. colour in each stanza. This ballad form is appropriate to tell the tragedy of the ordinary people of Baghdad in the aftermath of 'The Mother of All Wars'.
• At The Border 1979 - Choman Hardi -  does not have a set poetic form and the fractured and uneven nature of the poem's structure reflects the sense of dislocation that the refugees have.  They do not 'belong' anywhere just as the poem does not 'belong' in a set form.
• Belfast Confetti - Ciaran Carson - also does not have a form. The lines are a mixture of lengths in order to reflect the confusion of the bomb exploding.
• Poppies - Jane Weir - the poem could be said to be an elegy to the persona's son but this reading would depend on you feeling that the son has died - this is ambiguous and can be interpreted either way.  It seems to have a regular line length etc but within there is caesura that reflects someone appearing to be coping on the outside but being broken within.
• Charge of the Light Brigade - Alfred, Lord Tennyson.  Arguably this poem is an Ode, a classical type of poem that  is lyrical (meant to be read aloud) and commemorates heroic figures - 'the Six Hundred'.
• Futility - Wilfred Owen - this poem has 14 lines which is the classical form of the sonnet. However, Owen changes the structure within Futility to be unlike a sonnet (which usually rhymes ababcdcdcefefgg) which maybe represents that sense of Futility and lost hope in the poem.  Sonnets are usually love poems and here the question is what is loved: life? the soldier?
• Bayonet Charge - Ted Hughes - this poem does not have a set classical form which may reflect the confusion of being hurled into battle.
• Come On, Come Back - Stevie Smith - this poem is written in free verse where there is no regularity to the stanzas or lines. This reflects the inner confusion of the persona, Vaudevue. It may also represent the 'Future War' where traditional forms have now been lost.
• Next to of course god America I - e.e.cummings - like Come On. Come Back this poem is written in free verse and contains snippets of a number of patriotic songs.  However, it is in 14 lines and therefore could be seen to be a love poem, ironically as it is about 'love' of America.
• Hawk Roosting - Ted Hughes - this poem does not appear to have a traditional form but does have a regular structure which may represent the strength of the bird at the centre of it.

Of Mice and Men Revision

Of Mice and Men will be part B of the Exploring Modern Texts exam.  The question is worth 30 marks and is split into two sections part (a) and part (b).  This means roughly 20 minutes for each as the total time for Section B is 45 minutes.

Part (a) will be an extract of the novel that you will be asked to analyse paying close reference to the text - ensure you do this: there should be a lot of quotes from that section throughout the whole response.

Part (b) will be a question that builds on part (a) and has often been primarily about context.  Remember this is an English Literature exam, not History, and you need to include quotes and language techniques when responding.  Using FLICTS will help you to remember what to cover.

If you want to revise the novel or a character the entire novel Of Mice and Men is online here which makes searching for characters or quotes simple.

If you want to revise further this slideshare is brilliant in helping structure responses.

Form 

• Of Mice and Men is a novel / novella and therefore you should refer to the reader.
• John Steinbeck himself called it a play-novella and there are similarities between it and a play. Primarily, at the beginning of each chapter is a description of setting which contextualizes the action for the reader (the riverbank, the bunkhouse, Crooks' room, the barn). This description tells the reader much about the lives of the characters via details or foreshadows what is to come.
• also, the novella is largely dependent on dialogue to tell the story.  This brings the reader 'close' to the characters as we rarely have an omniscient narrator to comment on the action.  This means that the reader is asked to make their own judgements.
• There are five chapters which is similar to many tragedy plays which have five acts. We could say that OMAM is similar to a tragedy as explained here or see if you can use this explanation of classical tragedy to link to the events of OMAM.
• it is also a thriller: the foreshadowing and hints throughout warn the reader that something appalling is going to happen. 

Language

• You can comment on the way Steinbeck uses colloquial language to show the characters on the ranch: their speech is written to seem accented and they use slang and taboo language such as swearing.  This is a hard, masculine, rough world and their speech reflects this.
• Metaphors / motifs - the red dresses, the animal imagery, the Dream
• Religious language - 'fatta the lan'' comes from the Bible and refers to the promise of a better life.
• Soledad - the nearest town to the ranch means solitary / lonely in Spanish.  Metaphor.
• Of Mice and Men - comes from the poem To a Mouse by Robert Burns.  The lines it comes from are:

The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men 

Gang aft agley, 

An'lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, 

For promis'd joy!

(which roughly translates as: both mice and men's most cherished plans often go wrong and leave us with grief and pain instead of the joy we were promised)

Ideas / Intentions

• Steinbeck's voice as omniscient narrator is not often present in the novel - he leaves the reader to come to their own interpretation without commenting.
• However, it is fair to interpret that Steinbeck is trying to make the reader think about the nature of prejudice (against the weak/disabled/old; discrimination against women; racial prejudice and the grinding poverty of the ranch workers).
• Steinbeck had Communist sympathies and if you were asked about the Boss or Curley an examiner would be impressed if you linked the relatively negative representation of these two men to Steinbeck's political sympathies which would be with the workers and against the Boss: 'A little stocky man stood in the open doorway. He wore blue jean trousers, a flannel shirt, a black, unbuttoned vest and a black coat. His thumbs were stuck in his belt, on each side of a square steel buckle. On his head was a soiled brown Stetson hat, and he wore high-heeled boots and spurs to prove he was not a laboring man.'

Context.

Context is ONLY examined in Of Mice and Men, not in An Inspector Calls. Remember, this is a Literature exam not History, so you need to link context to the characters and quotes in the novel.  There are few marks for being able to spout a timeline about the Great Depression but a lot for being able to link how the limited possessions of the ranch workers demonstrates the poverty at the time.

There is a useful overview of context here

• Ranch workers / itinerant workers - the novel was published in 1937 and Steinbeck had personal experience of the life of ranch workers from summer jobs he had on the ranches.  The decades before 1937 had been tough: the Wall Street Crash (1929) had led to the Great Depression where millions ended up poverty stricken. To make matters worse, over farming had caused the Great Dust Bowl and many farmers from these areas had been forced to travel for work.  There were refugee camps in California for the poor who arrived to seek works in the fertile Californian valleys. Many workers meant wage prices were low and any troublemakers could easily be replaced. Think about how the bunkhouse is described and how few possessions the ranch workers had:  Over each bunk there was nailed an apple box with the opening forward so that it made two shelves for the personal belongings of the occupant of the bunk. And these shelves were loaded with little articles, soap and talcum powder, razors and those Western magazines ranch men love to read and scoff at and secretly believe. And there were medicines on the shelves, and little vials, combs; and from nails on the boxsides, a few neckties.

• African-Americans - as you are aware America had an appalling history of slavery followed by a history of segregation, where white people would not allow African-Americans to attend the same schools, restaurants and their job opportunities were limited. True segregation was practised in the South - Alabama, Mississippi, Texas.  In the northern states and California there had not been slavery nor legal segregation. 
•  Crooks is proud of being Californian: “I ain’t a southern Negro,”he said. “I was born right here in California. My old man had a chicken ranch, ‘bout ten acres. The white kids come to play at our place, an’ sometimes I went to play with them, and some of them was pretty nice." However, whilst there is no legal segregation in California it was still a racist society and African-Americans were not welcome nor equal:  'He hesitated, and when he spoke again his voice was softer. “There wasn’t another colored family for miles around. And now there ain’t a colored man on this ranch an’ there’s jus’ one family in Soledad.” He laughed. “If I say something, why it’s just a nigger sayin’ it.” 
On the ranch there is an odd mix of hatred and respect for Crooks:  “Yes sir. Jesus, we had fun. They let the nigger come in that night. Little skinner name of Smitty took after the nigger. Done pretty good, too. The guys wouldn’t let him use his feet, so the nigger got him. If he coulda used his feet, Smitty says he woulda killed the nigger. The guys said on account of the nigger’s got a crooked back, Smitty can’t use his feet.” He paused in relish of the memory."
• Crooks' room in the barn represents segregation - he is not allowed to live with the other (white) men in the bunkhouse.

The disabled 

• the ranch is a tough, masculine world. Crooks and Candy as disabled people are treated less well.  Candy 'swamps' (cleans) which is the lowest job.  Crooks has more respect and looks after the mules.  However, physical disability is a real bar to them in this society.
• Lennie appears to have some sort of developmental abnormality. People who were mentally disabled were called unacceptable names such as 'retarded' in 1930s American and tended to be kept in institutions which were huge, unpleasant and not designed to help mentally disabled people live a fulfilling and happy life. Lennie is lucky to have Aunt Clara and George to allow him to live a more independent life. However, the prevailing attitude to mental disability is shown by the names Lennie is called: 'crazy bastard!' and 'dum dum'. You can learn more about the history of disability in America here

Themes

• Loneliness & companionship, violence, prejudice, segregation, dreams, failure

Structure

• Foreshadowing: the girl in Weed; the mouse to the puppy to Curly's wife; shooting Candy's dog; George warning & reminding Lennie about the hiding place
• Cyclical structure - the novel ends where it starts as nobody gets their dream.

Finally: this is FUN, FUN I tell you...

Bayonet Charge

AO1 respond to texts critically and imaginatively; select and evaluate relevant textual detail to illustrate and support interpretations

First watch this dramatisation of the poem

You should DEFINITELY read this presentation which develops explanation of the poem, is thoroughly annotated and is very useful to read alongside the BBC Bitesize revision section. 

AO2 explain how language, structure and form contribute to writers’ presentation of ideas, themes and settings

Structure: the poem is in three stanzas and we start in the middle of  the 'Bayonet Charge' with the words 'Suddenly' (the same word that starts 'Belfast Confetti') which hurls the reader into the confusion of the battle without any warning. We get the sense of urgency and confusion of the solider as he heads 'over the top' and across the battlefield. The use of the enjambment in the first stanza gives the reader the sense of urgency and running as does the repetition of 'raw...raw'; it's as if the soldier does not have time to think through what is happening to him.

The second stanza is almost in slow-motion: the soldier realises where he is and what is happening to him and it seems unreal 'in bewilderment then he almost stopped -', the use of the hyphen underlines this confusion. He is continuing to run but the experience feels unreal to him 'in what cold clockwork of the stars and nations was he the hand pointing that second?' 

The final stanza shows the dawning realisation of the danger he is in: 'his terror's touchy dynamite'. Throughout the poem enjambment is used to give the sense of running: the lines lead into the next but the sense of confusion and conflict is caused by caesuras within the lines which break up the flow and give the sense of halting breathing:

He was running

Like a man who has jumped up in the dark and runs

Listening between his footfalls for the reason

Of his still running, and his foot hung like

Statuary in mid-stride. Then the shot-slashed furrows

Notice, the caesura after 'statuary in mid stride.' which reflects the sense of stopping but them immediately the stanza uses enjambment to move into the final stanza, showing that he cannot stop.

Language:
repetition: 'raw, in raw-seamed hot khaki'
simile: 'He lugged a rifle numb as a smashed arm'
physicality: 'sweat heavy', 'stumbling', 'dazzled' 'Sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest'.
Irony and bitter tone in listing: 'King, honour, human dignity, etcetera'

Nature versus conflict: 'Stumbling across a field of clods towards a green hedge/That dazzled with rifle fire' and 'Threw up a yellow hare that rolled like a flame / And crawled in a threshing circle'
Sibilance 'shot-slashed furrows'
Metaphor 'Bullets smacking the belly out of the air'

Context

Ted Hughes was a poet from Yorkshire and this poem was written in the 1960s but seems to be a homage to World War 1 (in which his father fought) or to the poetry of Wilfred Owen. Hughes is best known as a nature poet (see 'Hawk Roosting') and there are elements of nature in this poem but, unusually for Hughes, it is clearly about a man's experience.

Poppies

AO1 respond to texts critically and imaginatively; select and evaluate relevant textual detail to illustrate and support interpretations

Jane Weir reading her own poem

AO2 explain how language, structure and form contribute to writers’ presentation of ideas, themes and settings

The poem is called 'Poppies' which links to the wearing of the poppy on Remembrance Sunday which is referred to in the poem by 'Three days before Armistice Sunday'.  This reference might link the poem to World War 1 which is where the idea of the poppy as a remembrance flower came from or to all succeeding wars which are commemorated on Armistice Sunday (the nearest Sunday to 11th November each year).

Structure: 


The poem has four irregular stanzas and does not have a fixed rhyme scheme but at times does have limited rhyme (graze my nose/across the tip of your nose/play at being Eskimos) and the end rhyme of tree/me/busy in stanza three giving a sense of the persona being 'led' from the bedroom to the churchyard. 

Generally, we would say that the lines use enjambment to lead through the poem but often there are caesuras mid-line (commas or fullstops) which stops the flow of the poem.  The effect could be that on the surface the mother is calm but is broken and stopped up inwardly by her sorrow.

There is a sense of the passing of time in the poem 'Three days before Armistice Sunday' ... 'Before you Left' ... 'After you'd gone' ... 'Later' ... 'this is where it has led me'. 

Language

Metaphor - clothing as a metaphor: 'lapel', 'blazer','Selloptape bandaged around my hand/ I rounded up as many cat hairs as I could', 'smoothed down your shirt's upturned collar' for the care for her son. Her inability to tell him how she feels 'all my words flattened, rolled, turned into felt'. Also for her anguish: 'my stomach busy making tucks, darts, pleats' and her carelessness for her own well-being after he's gone 'hat-less, without a winter coat or reinforcements of scarf, gloves.'.

Semantic field of war - 'blockade', 'bandaged', 'single dove', 'reinforcements' and 'war memorial'.

Metaphor - 'the gelled blackthorns of your hair'

Simile - 'leaned against it like a wishbone'

Childhood - 'like we did when you were little' and 'hoping to hear your playground voice catching on the wind'

Death - 'individual war graves', 'skirting the church yard walls' and 'war memorial'

Birds - 'released a song bird from its cage', 'a single dove flew from the pear tree' and 'the dove pulled freely against the sky, an ornamental stitch'.

Alternative interpretations: is the son dead? Could we see the poem in more than one way?

Conflict between mother's love and son's need to grow up 'treasure chest', 'intoxicated', 'resisted the impulse'.
AO3 make comparisons and explain links between texts, evaluating writers’ different ways of expressing meaning and achieving effects

Consider other poems that refer to nature, grief, children, death.

AO4 relate texts to their social, cultural and historical contexts; explain how texts have been influential and significant to self and other readers in different contexts and at different times

This poem was written by Jane Weir a modern poet who says she was influenced by Wilfred Owen's mother.  However, it appears to be set in a modern conflict rather than in World War 1 as it refers to more modern items such as 'sellotape'.  The conflict is not referred to explicitly, maybe meaning that this is a timeless feeling for mothers who have lost their sons to war. 

Jane Weir herself is a modern poet and textiles artist who utilises her textiles knowledge in her poetry. 

The Charge of the Light Brigade Alfred Tennyson

AO1 Respond to texts critically and imaginatively; select and evaluate relevant textual detail to  illustrate and support interpretations

Firstly, watch and read this interpretation

 

And then this one which demonstrates the metre and rhythm better

An explanation of what it means

AO2 explain how language, structure and form contribute to writers’ presentation of ideas, themes and settings

A very useful video on language, structure and form

Important language techniques to note:

• anaphora (the repetition of the same words at the beginning of lines) 'Half a league, half a league, half a league onwards'; 'Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die' and 'Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, cannon behind them'
• onomatopoeia, alliterations and sibilance giving the sense of the noise of battle: 'volley'd and thunder'd, storm'd at with shot and shell' and 'shatter'd and sunder'd' 
• religious imagery: 'mouth of Hell' and 'valley of Death' from Psalm 23 which was often read at funerals
• metaphor: 'jaws of death' and 'mouth of Hell'
• rhyme and rhythm: sound like the thundering hooves of the charge and seems unstoppable like the charge
• End-stopped stanzas gives a sense of finality
• Repetition 'six hundred' - gives a sense of all the men and the scale of the sacrifice

Alternative interpretations:

Note all the times that we get a sense of being trapped and enclosed - there is no way out.

Note the heroism

Note the quiet and hidden criticism of the leadership 'wild charge', 'someone had blundered'

Note the impact that these men's sacrifice will have on history (posterity)

Note the fierceness of the battle 

Difficult vocabulary

half a league - a mile and a half (an old-fashioned measure of distance)

blunder'd - made a huge mistake (blundered)

sabres - a curved sword

cavalry - soldiers who fight on horseback

Cossacks - Russian cavalry (the enemy of the British)

Volley'd - a verb (volleyed) which suggests sending a lot of missiles across the battlefield

AO3 make comparisons and explain links between texts, evaluating writers’ different ways of expressing meaning and achieving effects

Which poems could we compare it to: sacrifice, bravery and war?


AO4 relate texts to their social, cultural and historical contexts; explain how texts have been  influential and significant to self and other readers in different contexts and at different times

The poem was written by Tennyson as Poet Laureate.  The Poet Laureate is an official role in Britain where the greatest poet of the day is asked to write for the nation.  Therefore, at a time of war, the Poet Laureate might be expected to be patriotic and to write from a British perspective, as he does here in a poem which was written only six weeks after the battle itself.  The war was the Crimean War (1853-1856, which we remember best as the war where Florence Nightingale changed medicine) which was fought in the Black Sea region of Russia.  Primarily, it was a religious war between Turkey and Russia and Britain got involved because we were concerned that the Russian invasion would cut off our route from Europe to India. The actual charge of the Light Brigade was a military disaster which has been the source of much controversy ever since as a lightly armed cavalry (horse-riding) division were sent into battle against cannon with predictable results.  Tennyson recognises this failure 'some one had blunder'd' but instead focuses on the gallantry and bravery of the Light Brigade and their glorious sacrifice 'When can their glory fade?' and 'Honour the Light Brigade, Noble Six Hundred!'. Indeed, this poem has succeeded in future generations being aware of this battle but probably unaware of the fact it was a failure.