Visiting Hour

SQA Higher English 2022

Summary

The poem is a 𝗻𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗽𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿. The speaker is determined to maintain his composure but is unsuccessful in switching off his emotions. In the end he is forced to confront the reality of both his own and the patient's mortality.

Themes

❥ Inevitability of death (speaker is forced to confront his own mortality and the patient's)
❥ Fear (speaker fears his inability to control his emotions)
❥ Fragility of life
❥ Loss
❥ Suffering (of both the patient and narrator)
❥ Isolation (of both the patient and narrator)
❥ Communication (it is difficult because of the distance between them)
❥ Inevitability of pain

Characters

❥ Speaker
❥ Nurses
❥ Patient

Structure

❥ First person (allows us to experience the emotions of the speaker as he feels them)
❥ Free verse
❥ Present tense
❥ Follows the chronological order of the visit

'Visiting Hour'

❥ Title
❥ Fleeting moment
❥ Concept of time
❥ Suggests a hospital or prison (either way there is a sense of imprisonment)

'The hospital smell'

❥ Definite article emphasises how it is ubiquitous
❥ Evocative (familiarity appeals to memory and sense of smell)
❥ The first impression is the overwhelming smell (suggests the rest of the journey will be just as overwhelming)
❥ 'hospital' connotes sickness

'combs my nostrils'

❥ Metaphor
❥ Intrusive
❥ Just as a comb brushes every strand of hair, so too does the smell cling to every part of his nostril and assaults our sense of smell
❥ Tangible impact

'they go bobbing along'

❥ Synecdoche (one part refers to the whole)
❥ Shows how overpowering the smell is that it blocks out all other senses
❥ 'bobbing' has pleasant connotations and suggests anticipation (narrator is tricking himself and suppressing his feelings)
❥ Humorous image to contrast the seriousness faced in the rest of the poem

'green and yellow corridors'

❥ These colours are usually associated with sickness and infection
❥ 'corridors' can relate to nasal passages
❥ Despite the speaker's attempt to avoid an emotional response, his senses force him to confront the reality of the situation

'a corpse'

❥ The speaker has his first brush with death
❥ Medical/legal term dehumanises the dead body

'trundled'

❥ Onomatopoeia conveys the noise of the trolley
❥ The corpse is handled in an emotionless way
❥ Lack of dignity
❥ Clumsiness
❥ Heaviness

'vanishes'

❥ Metaphor
❥ Dark finality of death

'heavenward'

❥ Enjambment isolates the word and reinforces the finality and isolation of death
❥ The body is literally going upwards but also on a deeper level (the rising lift is symbolic of the journey to heaven)
❥ Awareness of death
❥ Wry humour
❥ Serves as a reminder of the inevitability of death (comparison of the lift's journey to the journey of a soul to heaven)

'I will not feel, I will not / feel, until'

❥ First person narrative evokes a personal response from the reader and shows the speakers isolation
❥ Repetition of monosyllabic force
❥ Enjambment stresses 'not'
❥ Short lines emphasise the tense situation and gives a staccato rhythm (reflects his footsteps)
❥ His internal dialogue reflects his determination to be light-hearted and not let his emotions overpower him
❥ Shows the speaker's fear of being overwhelmed and conveys how desperately he would like to remain numb

'I have to'

❥ Inevitability of pain

'lightly, swiftly'

❥ Adverbs suggest efficiency and carefreeness
❥ The poet admires their efficiency

'and up and down and there'

❥ Inversion (unusual word order) creates the effect of the randomness of their jobs, there is a lack of routine and the nurses must react to what is happening
❥ There are so many nurses, they are omnipresent
❥ Repetition of 'and' suggests they are constantly on the move and their work is never done

'slender waists'

❥ Physically delicate
❥ The speaker is surprised they can cope with such a difficult job when they seem so delicate

'miraculously / carrying their burden'

❥ Supernatural/magical
❥ Mental resistance
❥ The speaker is astonished by how they can carry this emotional baggage on such light frames
❥ Suggests the poet's admiration for their physical labour as well as how they professionally handle the huge emotional burden, while he struggles to prevent his feelings from surfacing

'their eyes / still clear'

❥ The nurses are not crying and are keeping professional distance and judgement
❥ There is a contrast between the poet's personal interest and the nurse's professional interest

'so much pain [...] so many farewells'

❥ Repetition of 'so' shows how many tragedies and emotional battles the nurses have faced
❥ Parallel sentence structure emphasises the emotional strain of their difficult job
❥ 'farewells' links to the next stanza and the main purpose of the speaker's visit (the word has connotations of saying goodbye to someone embarking on a journey, although death is the final journey there is an implication and a sense of hope that he may meet the patient again (afterlife?))

'Ward 7.'

❥ Stark reality of the situation
❥ Caesura is abrupt and jolts the reader, it suggests that the speaker has arrived to his destination but has paused to brace himself as from here, it is impossible to escape the spectre of death
❥ Impersonal
❥ Illustrates the immediate, inescapable simplicity of the situation

'white cave'

❥ The patient is literally surrounded by curtains
❥ Metaphor
❥ Suggests heaven and innocence (creates sympathy) but also isolation and imprisonment
❥ There is a lack of any sensory awareness in the patient's current state (reinforces her isolation)
❥ Contrasts the hospital corridor's colourful walls

'withered hand'

❥ Flowers are often given to patients
❥ Compares the patient to a dying flower (she is at the point of death)
❥ Suggests she was once full of vitality
❥ Conveys her frailty and how ill she is
❥ Implicit hope (as flowers die and go to seed, there is a possibility for regrowth (afterlife?))

'trembles on its stalk'

❥ Extended metaphor
❥ 'its' dehumanises the patient and highlights the fragility and impermanence of human life (suggests her body is merely an empty shell, the person she once was has gone)

'Eyes move / behind eyelids'

❥ The omission of possessive adjectives further dehumanises the patient (empty shell)
❥ The eyelids are a barrier between the patient and the visitor

'fang is fixed'

❥ Metaphor
❥ Grim humour
❥ Compares the drip to a vampire
❥ The speaker finds the medical equipment extremely frightening and intrusive

'guzzling but giving'

❥ Plosive 'g' conveys a sense of bitterness
❥ The speaker feels the medication is ineffective
❥ Alliteration draws attention to how the drip is giving life, unlike a vampire which draws life out

'distance of pain [...] I'

❥ Metaphorical barrier
❥ One faces emotional pain while the other faces physical pain and therefore they cannot share the pain
❥ 'I' emphasises how isolated he feels
❥ Enjambment emphasises the desperation and distance

'black figure'

❥ Refers to the narrator
❥ 'black' suggests death
❥ The colour is bold and stands out against the white surroundings while the patient looks weak and insubstantial (distance)

'white cave'

❥ Recurring image
❥ Vulnerability
❥ Contrast to the 'black figure' emphasises the distance between the two and how isolated and different they are to each other

'clumsily'

❥ There is a disconnect between the speaker's body and mind
❥ Speaker is overcome and upset by the experience

'round swimming waves of a bell'

❥ Synaesthesia (one sense to evoke another)
❥ The imagery of the 'swimming waves' suggests the speaker is overwhelmed and is drowning in his emotions as he recognises the bell's significance
❥ The 'bell' represents the last time the speaker will see the patient

'growing fainter, / not smaller'

❥ From the patient's point of view, the speaker is evaporating into thin air just as she is fading towards death

'books that will not be read'

❥ Paradox
❥ Shows his frustration
❥ Shows his lack of acceptance and his anger at the experience
❥ He is incredibly disorientated and distressed at the patient's death

'fruitless fruits'

❥ Pointless (frustration)
❥ Oxymoron and alliteration
❥ Just as the fruit will decay and rot, so too will the patient deteriorate
❥ Proximity of death
❥ Final reluctant recognition of the hopelessness of the situation