Brooklyn Cop

SQA Higher English 2022

Summary

The poet describes and 𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝘂𝗽𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲, 𝗱𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲𝘀𝘁𝘆𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝗕𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗸𝗹𝘆𝗻 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗻. The poet is interested in the violence and death with which the cop is perpetually faced and his relationships with the criminals he deals with. The poet questions how civilised modern society is and suggests the dehumanising nature of violence.

Themes

❥ Isolation
❥ Fear (although compared to an animal, the policeman has human hopes and fears)
❥ Violence (it is suggested that the modern city is full of the threat of violence and uncivilised human nature)

Characters

❥ Policeman

Structure

❥ Third person
❥ Consists of 4 stanzas and each stanza gradually gets shorter (this shows the poet's hope of justice is being lost and disappears the more he thinks about it)
1. Builds the image of the cop
2. Emphasises the street violence and the dangers the cop faces everyday (long sentence structure reflects the range of possibilities and challenges that the policeman may face at any given moment)
3. Shows the fragility of society and how quickly the cop could be thrown from safety into violence (because violence is always present in his world)
4. Highlights the violence that the cop himself is capable of

'Built like a gorilla'

❥ Simile shows his enormous size and power
❥ He is immediately compared to an animal
❥ Stereotype
❥ Exaggerated
❥ Suggests he is tough, large and fearsome

'less timid'

❥ Humorous
❥ Gorillas aren't timid
❥ The cop is even more viscous than a gorilla
❥ He is fearsome and fearless

'thick-fleshed, steak-coloured'

❥ Compound adjectives
❥ 'thick-fleshed' suggests he is thick-skinned and desensitised
❥ 'steak-coloured' could be referring to his uniform or skin
❥ Suggests meat (raw, uncompromising, possible connotations of blood and violence)

'hieroglyphs'

❥ Metaphor
❥ Hieroglyphs are pictures representing words on Egyptian tombs
❥ Hard to read
❥ Mysterious
❥ Possibly referring to scars (telling us of the violent nature of his previous experiences)

'thin tissue over violence'

❥ Metaphor
❥ Peace in the city is paper-thin and fragile
❥ Creates a strong contrast to 'thick-fleshed' (the importance of the cop in preventing the thin tissue of civilisation from ripping open into disorder)
❥ Violence is never far away
❥ Thin tissue is easily destroyed (violence easily erupts)
❥ Short vowel 'i' sound emphasises the fragility of the cover over violence
❥ Also suggests the cop is close to becoming violent (he is a complex character)

'he hoped it, he truly hoped it'

❥ Repetition
❥ Emphasises his genuine fears
❥ Stresses the danger of his environment
❥ Vulnerability
❥ Hints desperation
❥ Contrasts the casual dialogue between him and his wife
❥ His comment to his wife isn't meaningless but a genuine wish
❥ 'truly' adds authenticity

'He is a gorilla'

❥ Metaphor
❥ Reinforces his primitive aggression
❥ Strengthens poem's first line (he is no longer 'like' a gorilla, he is one)
❥ It is a comment on society and the demand for violence used to control violence

'"Hiya, honey"'

❥ Direct speech (links to previous one)
❥ Contrast between gorilla image and his tenderness
❥ The cop is a sympathetic figure
❥ Although hardened by his job, he has the same genuine feelings as anyone else
❥ Brutality versus vulnerability
❥ Duality of man
❥ He is truly grateful to make it home safely each day

'Should the tissue tear, should'

❥ Links back (repetition of the image suggests it is a definite possibility)
❥ Kinetic image (destruction)
❥ The alliteration of 'tissue tear' creates a quick phrase that implies a sudden act
❥ 'tear' has sharp, painful connotations and suggests destruction
❥ The repetition of 'should' highlights the number of possible issues that could cause him to descend into violence
❥ Hints there is a fine line separating the cop and savagery
❥ Shows how easily and quickly the cop could be caught up in violent chaos (it would take little for society to break down and that violence is a constant threat)

'plunge'

❥ Onomatopoeia mimics falling quickly, abruptly and uncontrollably
❥ Suggests a rapid descent (his descent into savagery seems certain should he give in to violence)

'what clubbings, what / gunshots'

❥ Violent images show the seriousness of threats
❥ Short vowels 'u' mimic the blunt action of aggressors
❥ Repetition of 'what' suggests uncertainty (the possible violence and the severity of it that the cop faces is unknown)

'Phoebe's Whamburger / and Louie's Place'

❥ 'Wham' is onomatopoeic and mimics violence (suggests the sound of a punch landing in a comic strip)
❥ Very American names add authenticity to the setting
❥ As they are real places it makes it more chilling and unsettling

'Who would be him'

❥ Rhetorical question
❥ It is not a job most people would want (undesirable)

'gorilla with a nightstick'

❥ Extended metaphor (shows him as an animal with authority)
❥ The baton he carries re-enforces his vulnerability against the power of the clubbings and gunshots (it suggests a more basic and direct physical violence than a gun might)
❥ Escalation of the savagery (how desensitised he becomes)
❥ Each time a gorilla is mentioned it becomes more disturbing

'this time'

❥ He has to endure this danger again and again
❥ Furthers our sympathy

'And who would be who have to be'

❥ Unusual sentence structure isolates final point
❥ Human condition
❥ Inevitability
❥ Some people have to be victims of police brutality

'victims'

❥ Isolated
❥ Word choice is a negative view of the cop and his role in society
❥ Suggests the cop is as much a perpetrator of violence as he is a protector
❥ The cop is the aggressor and criminals are attacked
❥ Criminals are forced to be criminals by forces outwith their control
❥ A comment on society itself and the way it stops violence with more violence