Power and Conflict

The Charge of the Light Brigade

• ‘In the valley of death rode the six hundred.’ -  metaphor connotes to hell and death, definite article shows they are a collective and must all be remembered 

• ‘All the world wondered’ - repetition encourages readers to question morality of sacrifice, indentation shows separation between world and war 

• ‘While horse and hero fell.’ -  Alliteration emphasizes the amount of death 

• ‘Honor the charge they made! Honour the Light Brigade!’ - anaphora of imperative verb shows we must remember the Brigade 

Dactylic Dimeter: Like a horse, soldiers run blindly into battle following orders.  

Exposure

• ‘Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us...’ - personification shows weather is an enemy, epilepsies create suspense showing the true nature of war 

• ‘Her melancholy army attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of grey.’ - personification shows strength of nature 

• ‘For love of G-d seems dying’ - biblical allusion emphasizes hatred of war 

• ‘All their eyes are ice, but nothing happens.’ -  metaphor shows they are empty inside; repetition emphasizes war is pointless and people die for nothing 

  Short Sentence End: Chilling death ‘But nothing happens.’ war only causes bad.  

   

The emigree

• ‘There once was a country... I left it as a child but my memory of it is sunlight-clear.’ - Temporal phrase shows country changed, ellipsis creates pause showing speaker’s inner conflict, metaphor “sunlight clear” connotes to happiness and positivity 

• ‘It may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants, but I am branded by an impression of sunlight’ - Modal verbs create ambiguous tone to relate to everybody, personification ‘sick’ shows negative affects oppression has on a country, metaphor ‘branded’ shows positive memories permanent and all speaker has of home country 

• ‘I have no passport... but my city comes to me in its own white plane.’ - Stripped of identity, personification emphasizes power of her memories, adjective ‘white’ connotes to childhood and innocence 

• ‘They accuse me of absence, they circle me, they accuse me of being dark in their free city’ - Repetition creates accusatory tone, pronoun ‘they‘ creates a sense of separation, country is like a vulture eating speaker up with hatred 

  Lack of detail: Applies to everyone, many are emigree’s. 

Storm on the Island

• ‘Sink walls in rock and roof them with good slate, this wizened earth has never troubled us.’ - alliteration links to sturdiness and confidence, adjective represents earths power 

• ‘But there are no trees, no natural shelter.’ -  volta shows change in tone, anaphora shows earth is against them 

• ‘Exploding comfortably down on the cliffs.’ - Oxymoron shows unnatural nature of situation, links to IRA targeting London as well as Northern Ireland 

• ‘Spits like a tame cat turned savage.’ - simile, juxtaposition of adjectives shows confidence to fear 

Free verse: Nature is unpredictable and relentless. 

Bayonet Charge

• ‘Suddenly he awoke and was running – raw in raw-seamed hot khaki, his sweat heavy’ - in media res shows action, repetition shows lack of humanity 

• ‘Cold clockwork of the stars and nations.’ - Alliteration, metaphor questioning patriotism 

• ‘King, honor, human dignity, etcetera dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm’ - tripling shows patriotism counts for nothing, simile shows previous values abandoned and he is full of fear 

• ‘His terrors touchy dynamite.’ -metaphor for fearing recklessness, plosive shows fear consuming him 

Irregular rhythm: Reflects panic struggle of soldiers. 

The Prelude

• ‘It was an act of stealth and troubled pleasure.’ - Oxymoron shows he believes he’s in control; noun ‘stealth’ shows speaker ignore nature only caring for being caught   

• ‘Like one who rows, proud of his skill to reach a chosen point.’ - Simile shows determination to navigate nature and overconfidence 

• ‘Upreared its head. I struck and struck again.’ - Volta shows nature can easily overpower man, personification shows power of nature, repetition of verb emphasizes his fear 

• ‘But huge and mighty forms that do not live like living men moved slowly through the mind by day, and were a trouble to my dreams’ - simile shows nature overpowers man, juxtaposition of ‘day’ and ‘dreams’ highlights psychological impact experience leaves 

Enjambment: Lack of control and nature is overwhelming. 

Remains

• ‘I see every round as it rips through his life – I see broad daylight on the other side.’ - volta, anaphora, graphic hyperbole all shows horrors of war and inescapability of memories 

• ‘One of my mates goes by and tosses his guts back into his body’ - colloquial language juxtaposes horrors of war, sibilance creates sinister mood 

• ‘The drink and drugs won’t flush him out’ - metaphor shows he is suffering from ptsd, plosive shows harshness of war 

• ‘Here and now, his bloody life in my bloody hands.’ - repetition shows connotations of death, possessive pronoun links to it being on him 

Ends with rhyme: Shows memories stay forever. 

Poppies

• ‘Spasms of paper red, disrupting a blockade of yellow bias binding around your blazer’ - semantic field of pain, blazer connotes to school children and innocence being lost 

• ‘Blackthorns of your hair. All my worlds flattened, rolled, turned into felt, slowly melting.’ - metaphor showing innocence lost, tripling shows how overbearing grief is 

• ‘The world overflowing like a treasure chest.’ - simile, lack of control over emotions 

• ‘I listened, hoping to hear your playground voice catching on the wind.’ - ghostly imagery, playground links to childhood and a loss of innocence 

Free verse: Outpour of emotion. 

War Photographer

• ‘Spools of suffering.’ - metaphor showing horrors of war, sibilance shows writers anger 

• ‘Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.’ - Tripling, plosive, metaphor, war is harsh, and dead people are very common and seem irrelevant 

• ‘The readers eyeballs prick with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers’ - plosive showing anger with west, metaphor showing images washed away  

• ‘He stares impassively at where he earns his living, and they do not care’ - repetition of pronouns separate photographer from public, differing views on war 

Rigid Structure: Contrasts chaotic reality of war. 

Kamikaze

• ‘Her father embarked at sunrise with a flask of water, a samurai sword.’ - Sibilance, sunrise is symbolic of patriotism 

• ‘A green–blue translucent sea ... like a huge flag waved first one way then the other in a figure of eight.’ - simile, infinity sign is a symbol of life’s value 

• ‘Only we children still chattered and laughed till gradually we too learned to be silent’ - volta, contrast of verbs 

• ‘He must have wondered which had been the better way to die’ - questions his decision 

Italics: Highlights sense of sadness and disconnection from society. 

London

• ‘The mind forged manacles I fear’ - metaphor, imprisonment imagery, institution doesn’t allow people to think, criticizes them not speaking out 

• ‘Every blackening church appalls.’ - Metaphor shows church is dead as it appalls, juxtaposes churches expectations 

• ‘Runs in blood down palace walls.’ - Metaphor shows institutions role in suffering of people, graphic imagery shows violence and hints to revolution like the French 

• ‘Blights with plagues the marriage hearse.’ - Oxymoron shows marriage leads to destruction instead of happiness, metaphor shows marriage is doomed due to disease (sexually transmitted) 

Cyclic Structure: There is a cycle of suffering, and it must be stopped. 

My Last Duchess

• ‘My last Duchess painted on the wall, looking as if she were alive.’ - Possessive pronoun immediately establishes Duke’s power, simile shows he is emotionless 

• ‘That spot of joy’ - Metaphor shows Duke’s paranoia of wife cheating, noun ‘spot ’could refer to small enjoyment showing Duke had extreme reaction 

• ‘Who passed without much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together.’ - Euphemism for murder showing finality and lack of control over wife 

• ‘Notice Neptune, though, taming a sea horse... cast in bronze for me.' - Metaphor shows he believes he is a G-d controlling a smaller vulnerable being in patriarchal society, believes power achieved through wealth, boasting to gain new Duchess  

Dramatic Monologue: Duke believes he has the power. 

Checking Out Me History

• ‘Dem tell me. Dem tell me.’ - Anaphora creates accusatory tone showing white institutions don’t include black history, pronoun them shows white and black separated 

• ‘Bandage up me eye with me own history. Blind me to me own identity.’ - Plosive shows identity restricted by institutions; painful imagery shows sadness that his identity was restricted in his upbringing 

• ‘A healing star.’ - Metaphor creates natural imagery showing admirable figures deserve recognition, criticizes institutions for not teaching about them 

• ‘But now I checking out me own history. I carving me identity.’ - Rhyming couplet shows happiness, metaphor shows beauty in discovering your identity 

Enjambment: Links black and white stanzas, black history should be taught. 

 

Ozymandias

• ‘Whose frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command.’ - tripling emphasizes cruelty, alliteration creates harsh tone reflecting cruelty, criticism of a single individual having power   

• ‘The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.’ - Dichotomy/juxtaposition found in leaders as they deceive people and are unpredictable, criticism of one man being in power 

• ‘Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ - Imperative shows corrupt nature of king/ tyranny, exclamation mark reflects overconfidence which is ironic as all that remains is part of a statue 

• ‘Boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.’ - 2 pairs of alliterative adjectives emphasize emptiness and loss of power 

Irregular rhyme scheme: Ruler has no power after time. 

Tissue

• ‘Paper that lets the light shine though, this is what could alter things.’ - Metaphor shows fragile things such as paper have the power to make a change, and that G-d and nature are more powerful than humans, alliteration of ‘lets’ and ‘light’ shows paper is gentle & strong 

• ‘Maps too. The sun shines through their borderlines.’ - Short declarative sentence is a metaphor exploring life being a short and finite journey, ‘borderlines’ links to geographical identities significance 

• ‘Might fly our lives like paper kites.’ - simile emphasizes lack of control we have of life, modal verb ‘might’ emphasize uncertainty of life, kites moved by wind showing we are controlled by nature and how humans have paradoxical natures  

• ‘Smoothed and stroked and thinned to be transparent turned into your skin.’ - Repetition shows life is valuable, verb ‘thinned’ links to transience of life, metaphor shows paper makes up human life and life is fragile 

Enjambment: People have no control over nature.