H English 'Hotel Room, 12th Floor' quotes

‘Hotel Room, 12th Floor’ - Title

* Setting/WC - impersonal, foreign/away from home
* Non-specific, could be anyone in NY
* High-up, so sense of ‘other’ compared to NYC, removed from city/violence. Seems smaller, sense of superiority/judgemental

Themes

* Like in ‘Basking Shark’, MacCaig explores the human condition. Whilst NY may appear to be the centre of modern western civilisation with its skyscrapers and prosperity, M wonders just how civilised society actually is and how far the country has come from its bloody past
* Pessimistic poem that questions human’s ability to defeat primitive impulses. M concludes by saying despite our advances, humanity cannot completely eradicate the evil that has plagued societies for generations
* Moral value of materialistic society/contrast of poverty & wealth
* Like ‘Brooklyn Cop’, explores the thin line between modern society and basic human instincts of violence and destruction and the dangers of urban society

Stanza 1 quotes

* ‘This morning I watched from here’
* ‘helicopter skirting like a damaged insect’
* ‘the Empire State Building, that/jumbo size dentist’s drill’
* ‘PanAm skyscraper’
* ‘But now midnight has come in’
* ‘from foreign places. Its uncivilised darkness’
* ‘darkness is shot at by a million lit windows’
* ‘all/ups and acrosses’

‘This morning I watched from here’

* Opens poem at specific time like how the title puts us in a ‘specific’ place. Along with the use of real landmarks, makes the poem feel like a genuine experience
* Creates a sense of immediacy, consolidated later in this stanza with ‘But now’. This suggests the themes of this poem must be discussed and are relevant to the time of writing

‘helicopter skirting like a damaged insect’

* Simile
* Just as a damaged insect is disoriented, broken, without direction, annoying etc. so too is the helicopter an inconvenience and hovering around haphazardly
* Disparaging of modern technology - unnerving and ominous, ‘skirting’ comparing to nature
* Modern invention is like an inferior copy of nature
* A helicopter may be commonly associated with wealth, so M may be making a subtle social comment here: perhaps society is ‘damaged’ by the ever-increasing pursuit of technological and material wealth

‘the Empire State Building’

Tallest landmark at the time, symbol of superiority/authority/power, to show off, symbol of excess

‘jumbo size dentist’s drill’

* This is a humorous image as there is no use for a drill this large for a dentist. He suggests a building this size is pointless and seems to criticize the American ideal of ‘bigger is better’
* Has connotations of pain and suffering. Again M is possibly making a deeper point regarding the inequality of society and the suffering of groups of people who are left behind by progress

‘PanAm skyscraper’

Shows how the wealthy go from height to height, above and out of reach of the violence below

‘But now midnight has come in’

* ‘But’ acts as obvious TP around which the time shifts from morning to the middle of the night. Tone shifts to something more solemn, ominous, eerie, unknown
* ‘midnight’ not only refers to literal time but also metaphorically introduces the idea of darkness being connected to the unknown and consequently, fear

‘from foreign places. Its uncivilised darkness’

* The idea of fear and conflict is re-enforced
* This could suggest that modern America is in conflict with anything that is ‘foreign’ or doesn’t tie in with its view of what is civilised

‘darkness is shot at by a million lit windows.’

* Metaphor
* Brings to mind USA’s close association with guns, such as Wild West
* Image suggests the buildings of the city in battle with the surrounding darkness
* Darkness and therefore evil, battles with artificial light, alongside its connotations of life, knowledge and progress. This raises questions about humanity’s ability to use its own inventions to combat the inevitable return of darkness and humankind’s most instinctive and destructive desires

‘all/ups and acrosses’

* M ends stanza suggesting that shots are being fired upwards
* ‘acrosses’ with its inclusion of the word ‘cross’ carries a religious connotation. The image suggests the Western Christian image of God fighting evil and darkness

Stanza 2 quotes

* ‘But midnight is not/so easily defeated.’
* ‘between a radio and a television set’
* ‘wildest of warwhoops continually ululating’
* ‘glittering canyons and gulches’
* ‘police cars’ and ‘ambulances racing’
* ‘broken bones’ and ‘harsh screaming’ and ‘blood/glazed’
* ‘harsh screaming/from coldwater flats’

‘But midnight is not/so easily defeated.’

* Consolidating pessimistic tone
* Repeat of ‘But’ at start of stanza links back to and emphasises the ‘But’ used as a turning point
* This continues the image of a battle between good and evil. In this Stanza, an extended metaphor portrays the violence of the city as a fight in the Wild West

‘between a radio and a television set’

* Suggesting we are surrounded, perhaps in an intimidating way, by technology
* Or could suggest he is attempting to use technology to drown out the sounds of violence from the city outside

‘wildest of warwhoops continually ululating’

He hears, possibly from the radio and/or TV ‘the wildest of warwhoops’. The choice of the superlative ‘wildest’ has connotations of an uncivilised, perhaps brutal culture and this idea is extended through alliteration with the word ‘warwhoops’, the war cries associated with Native Americans

‘ululating’

The warwhoops are described as ‘ululating’ M uses onomatopoeia to suggest the stereotypical sound that Native Americans would be shown making a Western film or TV show. He compares these repeated noises with the constant howl of sirens in the city streets

‘glittering canyons and gulches’

* M describes the setting of these historic battles as he writes of the ‘glittering canyons and gulches’
* This contrasts the natural landscape of the west with the affluent city
* The canyons may now be ‘glittering’ but they are still canyons

‘police cars’ and ‘ambulance racing’

* Suggests violence or foul play
* Hears the sirens like Wild West warcries

‘broken bones’ , ‘harsh screaming’ and ‘blood/glazed’

* Synecdoche - people are reduced to their pain: damaged body parts, noises and spilled fluids
* Dehumanising violence, disembodied, desensitised
* Enjambment of ‘blood/glazed’ mirrors blood flowing, sense of ongoing, continuous bloodshed
* Suggests the place of humans in society has been lost

‘harsh screaming/from coldwater flats’

* Refers to those in poorer living conditions
* M making a broader point that technological advances are not benefitting all, contrast between flats without hot water and illustrious, imposing skyscrapers. Certain elements of society have been left behind in the pursuit of materialism

Stanza 3 quote

‘The frontier is never somewhere else. And no stockades can keep the midnight out.’

‘The frontier is never somewhere else. And no stockades can keep the midnight out.’

M closes the poem with 2 sentences. Each makes a negative statement and they leave us with a pessimistic tone

‘frontier’

* Often an artificial construct. In the Wild West, a frontier was often used to describe a border between societies, most commonly between those considered civilised and those that were not.
* M suggests we can not block out our ‘uncivilised’ nature and that it is always a part of us

‘no stockades can keep the midnight out.’

* ‘stockade’ is a constructed barrier, designed to protect
* ‘midnight’ links back to reference of midnights being symbolic of evil
* No man-made barriers can suppress/defeat human nature