Power and conflict poetry quotes mayn

Ozymandias - "I met..."

"I met a traveller from an antique land"

•personal pronoun 'I' and adjective 'antique' conveys the unimportance of ozymandias

•shows how no one is more powerful than

nature

Ozymandias - "and sneer..."

"And sneer of cold command"

•alliteration puts emphasis on the tyrant's dictatorship

•synaesthesia

Ozymandias - "my name is..."

"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings"

•religious imagery shows comparison to god (ironic as he is forgotten)

Ozymandias - Structure

Petrarchan Sonnet

-typically associated with love

-shows Ozymandias' love for himself

Who was Percy Shelley?

•romantic poet

-didn't believe in authority from church or government

What Ozymandias compares with

•My last Duchess

-show powerful figures

•Tissue

-shows how fragile everything is

London - "In every..."

"In every cry of every man,

In every infant's cry of fear,

In every voice: in every ban,"

•repetition of 'in every' shows scale of

suffering in Victorian London

London - "The mind-forged..."

"The mind-forged manacles I hear"

•alliteration 'mind/manacles' draw's attention to metaphor that the people are mentally trapped

London - "And the hapless..."

"And the hapless soldiers sigh Runs in blood down palace walls."

•Symbolic metaphor for the sacrifices made to protect those in power

London themes

Power of humans, loss and absence, anger, individual experiences.

The prelude - "A little boat..."

"A little boat tied to a willow tree"

•the boat is a metaphor for man's influence, still anchored by the tree representing nature

The prelude - "I fixed my view..."

"I fixed my view upon the summit of a craggy ridge, the horizon's upmost boundary"

•change of mood

•craggy ridge and horizon's boundary represents nature, limiting the progress of the poet

The prelude - "A huge..."

"A huge peak, black and huge"

•personification of the mountain marks shift in tone

•language becomes darker and dangerous

•repetition of huge shows the scale of nature

The prelude themes

Nature, change, conflict between man and nature

My Last Duchess - "That's my..."

"That's my last duchess painted on the wall"

•possessive pronoun shows the speaker showing off his control and power

My Last Duchess - "Paint must never hope to..."

"Paint must never hope to reproduce the faint Half-flush that dies along her throat"

•sinister tone

•'die' and 'throat' semantically linked to

murder

My Last Duchess - "I gave commands..."

"I have commands, then all smiles stopped together"

•personal pronoun 'I' conveys how the duke is proud of the power he holds

•conveys dark tone as it shows the duke as impulsive

My Last Duchess theme

Justifying control and jealousy in a relationship

The Charge of the Light Brigade - "All in the..."

"All in the valley of death"

•Biblical reference (religious imagery)

•shows the horror they face, connotates hell

The Charge of the Light Brigade - "Rode the..."

"Rode the six hundred"

•repetition builds tension and drags out the charge

•shows how long and draining war is

The Charge of the Light Brigade - "O the..."

"O the wild charge they made"

•interjection shows he is feeling emotional (pride?/glorifies war)

The charge of the light brigade themes

- Glorifying war

- Remembrance

- Patriotism

- Abuse of power

- Sacrifice

- Bravery

Exposure - "our brains ache, in..."

"Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us"

•personification of the weather shows how nature is also an enemy of war

Exposure - "what are...?"

"What are we doing here?"

•rhetorical question condemns and highlights the hopelessness of war

Exposure - "But nothing..."

"But nothing happens"

•repeated throughout the text

•anti-climactic line shows the fear and repetition of war (shifts from the fighting)

Exposure themes

•conflict between nature and man

•shows other effects of war

Storm on the Island - "the sea is company,..."

"The sea is company, exploding comfortably"

•oxymoron shows contrasting behaviours of nature

Storm on the island - "spits like a..."

"Spits like a tamed cat turned savage"

•simile describes something that is majestic and powerful

•violent verb 'spits' degrades islanders and shows weather as aggressive

Storm on the island - "it is a huge..."

"It is a huge nothing that we fear"

•oxymoron suggests that the fear of nature is a paradox and there is nothing to fear

Storm on the island themes

•Conflict between nature and man

•poet points out that the fears are really small in the grand scheme

Bayonet charge - "suddenly he awoke..."

"Suddenly he awoke and was running"

•inmediares - opens in the middle of things

•shows how action-packed war can be

Bayonet charge - "king, honour..."

"King, honour, human dignity, etcetera"

•listing of propagandist motivations to fight in war

•show how soldiers are seen as meaningless

bayonet charge - "in what cold clockwork..."

"In what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations was he the hand pointing that second?"

•Rhetorical question

•shows the soldier more as part of a machine

•connotates pointless dying in war

Bayonet charge themes

The idea that soldiers are seen as meaningless in war

Remains - "on another..."

"On another occasion"

•anecdotal language conveys repetitive nature of war

Remains - "one of my mates goes by and..."

"One of my mates goes by and tosses his guts back into his body"

•noun mate makes war seem so casual

•Gory imagery conveys harsh truth about war

Remains - "his bloody life..."

"His bloody life in my bloody hands"

•repetition of 'bloody' shows how Gory war is

•ends the poem with sense of despair and

no resolution

Remains themes

Effects of conflict, reality of conflict, memory, guilt, individual experiences.

Poppies - "Sellotape bandaged..."

"Sellotape bandaged around my hand"

•Familiar noun/metaphor

•'sellotape' creates familiar/homely image

•'bandaged' implies wound (in memory?)

Poppies - "play at Eskimos..."

"Play at Eskimos, like we did when you were little"

•personal anecdote creates sense of human realism in her voice

•shows pleasure in remembering

Poppies - "as I walked with you to the front door, threw it open, the world..."

"As I walked with you to the front door, threw it open, the world overflowing like a chest"

•symbolic idea of throwing the door open

and letting her son free

•represents her acceptance of his choice

•simile suggests how attractive the world appears to her son

Poppies Themes

Effects of Conflict

Loss and Absence

Memory

Fear

Acceptance

War photographer - "In his dark room..."

"In his dark room he is finally alone"

•adverb 'finally' suggests his experiences haunt him

•memories can be damaging

War photographer - "beneath his hands, which did not tremble then, though..."

"Beneath his hands, which did not tremble then, though seem to now"

•ironic as only now in safety he trembles

•hints at PTSD

War photographer - "A hundred agonies in..."

"A hundred agonies in black and white"

•dark pun

•black and white in the newspapers but also in terms of morality

War photographer themes

Effects of Conflict

Reality of Conflict

Memory

Guilt

Tissue - "If buildings were paper..."

"If buildings were paper, I might feel their drift"

•metaphor for how unstable society is

Tissue - "Or block, but let daylight..."

"Or block, but let daylight break"

•pathetic fallacy gives hopeful aspect to the poem's message

Tissue - "With living tissue..."

"With living tissue, raise a structure never meant to last"

•metaphor about society

•ominous allusion to the horrors of war and

terrorism

Tissue themes

Power of Humans

Stability of society

Identity

The Émigree - "There once was..."

"There once was a country..."

•ellipses creates a caesura

•indicates flashback and happiness of past memories

The Émigree - "It may be sick..."

"It may be sick with tyrants"

•personification

•the city is infected but can recover (hopeful yet deluded idea)

The Émigree - "It tastes of..."

"It tastes of sunlight"

•synaethesia

•jumbling of senses shows confusion and conflicting emotions based on memory

The Émigree themes

Conflict of memories

Effects of war

Struggle with identity

Checking out me history - "Dem tell me bout de man who discover de balloon and..."

"Dem tell me bout de man who discover de balloon and de cow who jump over de moon"

•juxtaposes fact and fiction to indicate they

no meaning as they don't reflect his culture

Checking out me history - "Dem tell me bout Nelson and Waterloo but..."

"Dem tell me bout Nelson at Waterloo but dem never tell me bout Shaka de great Zulu"

•contrasts famous white figures with

minority contemporaries

•emphasises the one-sided nature of our education

Checking out me history - "Dem tell me Dem tell me wha..."

"Dem tell me Dem tell me wha dem want to tell me"

•repetition of 'dem' suggests a controlling group of people who held him back"

Checking out me history themes

- Identity

- Abuse of power

- Social Issues (racism, historical relevancy)

- Human power

Kamikaze - "A one way journey..."

"A one way journey into history"

•metaphor elevates the importance of the journey reminding that the pilot wasn't meant to return

Kamikaze - "And though he came back..."

"And though he came back my mother never spoke again in his presence"

•pronouns 'he' and 'his' leaves him nameless to demonstrate the shame

Kamikaze - "he must have wondered..."

"He must have wondered which had been the better way to die"

•metaphor to emphasises he is dead to his family

•tone of regret and sympathy for his situation

Kamikaze themes

- Patriotism

- Conflict within a conflict

- Personal conviction