Poetry Analysis Flashcards

Flashcards covering themes and refined quote analysis from various poems.

Kamikaze Themes

Conflict between personal conscience and national duty, memory, honour, nature vs. culture

"Her father embarked at sunrise" analysis

Evokes beauty and national symbolism (Japan = 'Land of the Rising Sun') — yet this hopeful image masks the dread of a suicide mission

"A tuna, the dark prince, muscular, dangerous" analysis

Animal imagery elevates the tuna to a near-regal status — a moment of awe at nature’s raw power

"Strung out like bunting" analysis

Simile draws on festive, patriotic imagery — ironic as it refers to fishing boats rather than celebration

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

Ambiguous final line confronts the psychological toll of social exile

"A samurai sword / in the cockpit" analysis

Symbol of inherited cultural expectations — the pilot carries not only a weapon, but tradition and duty

Bayonet Charge Themes

Trauma, fear, the dehumanising effect of war, disillusionment

"Suddenly he awoke and was running" analysis

In media res opening thrusts the reader into chaos; replicates soldier's jarring experience

"Bullets smacking the belly out of the air" analysis

Graphic personification: even the air is wounded, suggesting war corrupts the natural world

"The patriotic tear that had brimmed in his eye" analysis

Past perfect tense signals fading idealism; emotions replaced by fear

"In what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations" analysis

Celestial imagery evokes cosmic indifference — fate driven by political machinery, not human will

"His terror’s touchy dynamite" analysis

Ends with psychological explosion — the soldier becomes an embodiment of volatile fear

London Themes

Social injustice, political oppression, institutional corruption

"I wander through each chartered street" analysis

Implies legal ownership — critiques the privatisation of public spaces and nature

"Marks of weakness, marks of woe" Key Meaning

Physical signs and symbolic scars of suffering

"Mind-forged manacles" analysis

Psychological chains represent the internalisation of social control

"The hapless soldier’s sigh / Runs in blood down palace walls" analysis

Monarchy’s stability is built on bloodshed

"Blights with plagues the marriage hearse" analysis

Oxymoronic phrase fuses love, disease, and death, symbolic of corrupted institutions

Checking Out Me History Themes

Power of language, colonialism, identity, resistance

"Dem tell me / Wha dem want to tell me" analysis

Anaphora and repetition create accusatory tone — reflects systematic control over information

"Blind me to my own identity" analysis

Powerful metaphor for educational censorship: denial of selfhood

"Bandage up me eye with me own history" analysis

Education becomes a tool of suppression

"But now I checking out me own history / I carving out me identity" analysis

Shift from passive to active verbs = reclamation of agency

Toussaint L’Ouverture meaning

Symbolises leadership, courage, and autonomy

My Last Duchess Themes

Power, control, patriarchy, objectification

"That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall" analysis

Reinforces male ownership over women

"She looked on, and her looks went everywhere" analysis

Invites suspicion of infidelity, but could be innocent, reflects Duke’s paranoia and obsession with control

"I gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together." analysis

Chilling euphemism implies murder, veiled behind formal speech

"Notice Neptune, though, / Taming a sea-horse" analysis

Enhances Duke’s arrogance — equates himself with a god

"Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er / She looked on" analysis

Reveals the Duke’s possessive insecurity, demand for exclusive admiration = symptom of patriarchal entitlement