Disabled Analysis

How the soldier feels/Soldier’s thoughts and feelings:-

•the soldier is feeling cold and unhappy in the opening of the poem, which is repeated in
the final stanza to create sympathy for him: ‘He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark’,
‘shivered’, ‘How cold and late it is!’
• there is a poignant sadness when the soldier hears children in the park, reminding him of
the free, happy life they have and how he would like to be ‘mothered’: ‘Voices of play and
pleasures’ • memories of the soldier’s past social life (‘About this time Town used to swing
so gay’), friends who carried him ‘shoulder-high’, and a girlfriend, ‘to please his Meg’,
emphasise how he feels lonely and isolated now, ‘waiting for dark’ when it is ‘cold and late’
• the poet’s reference to past times where the soldier was feeling ‘how slim/Girls’ waists
are’, playing football and ‘drunk a peg’, contrasts with his present sadness and almost
panic-like state: ‘Why don't they come?’
• there is a sharp contrast between the youthfulness the soldier felt before he joined the
war: ‘For it was younger than his youth’, and how, in a short space of time, he now feels
that he is old: ‘Now, he is old’, ‘half his lifetime lapsed’
• the soldier’s feelings of helplessness as he cannot move himself, ‘Why don't they
come/And put him into bed’, is cruelly emphasised by the poet’s description of how he
used to be an active sportsman: ‘It was after football’
• there is sad irony in the way that at one time the soldier liked to feel the pain from
aggression and competition: ‘One time he liked a blood- smear down his leg’, but now he
has no legs in which to feel pain
• the poet presents the soldier as naïve about the war when he signed up as he felt that it
would be exciting to be part of something and get paid: ‘He thought...of smart salutes;/And
care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;/Esprit de corps...’
How the soldier is treated before and after he is injured/How others react to him:-

• the soldier’s solitude and feeling of imprisonment are emphasised by the children in the
park, and the voices of the boys in the park show how they experience the freedom of
youth: ‘Voices of play and pleasures after day’, but their voices have a negative effect on
the soldier, who feels they ‘rang saddening like a hymn’
• the poet shows the warmth and tenderness of past relationships the soldier had through
the description of how the ‘girls glanced lovelier’ and how he has felt ‘how slim/Girls’
waists are, or how warm their subtle hands’
• this is contrasted with the reactions of women to him now: ‘All of them touch him like
some queer disease’. The changes in women’s reactions to him show that the soldier feels
he is no longer attractive: ‘he noticed how the women's eyes/Passed from him’
• there is emphasis on how the soldier was once young and attractive to contrast with how
he feels about himself and how others treat him in the present: an artist is described as
‘silly for his face’, and ‘Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts’
• the people who signed the soldier up to join the army are described only as ‘they’,
suggesting some nameless group who had no interest in what was best for him: ‘He didn’t
have to beg’, ‘Smiling they wrote his lie’
• after his injuries the only visitor the soldier had was ‘a solemn man’, whose behaviour
suggested he felt sorry for him as he ‘brought him fruits/Thanked him; and then inquired
about his soul’
• the end stanza shows how the treatment of the soldier is like being imprisoned, although
he has done nothing wrong: ‘a few sick years in Institutes’, ‘do what things the rules
consider wise’.

The Use of Language and Structure:-

• the use of rhyme in the poem creates emphasis by connecting rhyme patterns across
stanzas: ‘grey’ and ‘day’ in the first stanza rhyme with ‘gay’ in the second, ‘dry’ and ‘thigh’ in
the third stanza with ‘shoulder– high’ in the next, creating a poignant contrast between
negative and positive
• use of alliteration shows the repetitive nature of the soldier’s life now he is disabled,
creating a feeling of lack of progression and end of life: ‘wheeled chair, waiting for dark’,
‘back will never brace’; the contrast with his previous life also shows the cruelty of what
has happened to him: ‘play and pleasures’, ‘girls glanced’, ‘smart salutes’
• the use of colour symbolism shows the lack of life the soldier now has: ‘ghastly suit of
grey’, ‘He’s lost his colour’; the poet creates a stark contrast with the colourful description
of the ‘leap of purple’ and the ‘blood-smear down his leg’
• verbs used to describe the soldier’s current state create sympathy for him as they are
passive and negative: ‘sat’, ‘waiting’, ‘take’, ‘Passed’, ‘put’; this contrasts with verbs used to
describe the soldier’s previous life which are active and full of energy, the contrast
showing the brutality of war: ‘swing’, ‘budded’, ‘threw’, ‘lost’, ‘Poured’, ‘spurted’, ‘cheered’
• the poet uses repetition to demonstrate the repetitive nature of the soldier’s current life:
‘Voices of...’, ‘And girls...’, ‘And half...’; the repetition of ‘Why don’t they come’ at the end of
the poem shows fear and loneliness, creating a feeling of sadness and sympathy for the
soldier
• similes are used to create a feeling of sadness about the soldier’s current situation:
‘Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn’, ‘All of them touch him like some queer disease’
• metaphor is used to emphasise the soldier’s feeling of recklessness in joining the war:
‘before he threw away his knees’, ‘Poured it down shell-holes’
• feelings the soldier has about his present life are described using negative language:
‘Now he will never feel again’, ‘his back will never brace’, ‘not as crowds cheer Goal’, ‘Why
don’t they come’
• the use of hyperbole shows how young the soldier looked when he signed up, and how he
was younger than nineteen, which creates more sympathy for his innocence: ‘it was
younger than his youth’, ‘Smiling they wrote his lie; aged nineteen years’
• language of uncertainty shows how the soldier risked everything for reasons he is unsure
of: ‘He thought he'd better join. — He wonders why’, ‘That’s why; and maybe, too, to please
his Meg;/Aye, that was it’
 Out Out Analysis

how the accident is presented:

• the immediate description of the saw creates a threat of menace, which the reader will
feel foreshadows the accident: ‘The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard’
• the poet describes the power of the saw as if it is solely in control: ‘And made dust and
dropped stove-length sticks of wood’; it is the subject of the active verbs
• the description of the setting before the accident creates a sense of ‘calm before the
storm’ for the reader: ‘Five mountain ranges one behind the other/Under the sunset far
into Vermont’; feelings of calm and peacefulness are created, only pierced by the sound of
the saw
• the details of the accident are recounted with sadness and shock but also some
detachment, as the narrator is either witnessing them or finding out about them after they
have happened: ‘I wish they might have said’, ‘But the hand!’
• the cutting of the hand by the saw is presented as the saw taking control and the boy
losing control, creating strong feelings of confusion and disbelief for the reader: ‘Neither
refused the meeting’
• the description of life ‘spilling’ shows the speed at which the events after the accident
occur, creating feelings of a lack of control
• the reader will feel a strong sense of sympathy from the boy’s plea to keep his hand, even
though it is already lost
• the reader will feel a strong sense of sympathy from the boy’s plea to keep his hand, even
though it is already lost
• the poet creates strong feelings as death is described as coming quickly: ‘No one
believed’
• the way the poet explains the reactions of ‘them’ carrying on with their lives is shocking
to the reader.
how the boy in the poem is described:
• the boy is described as less powerful than the saw as this is foregrounded in the poem,
creating feelings of strong sympathy for him
• language to demonstrate social context also creates a sense of sympathy for him as he is
a ‘boy’ looking to be ‘saved from work’ and ‘Doing a man’s work’
• it seems as if the boy is being treated badly by having to work late: ‘Call it a day, I wish
they might have said’
• he is referred to only as ‘the boy’, showing him to be a typical boy - the reader is
interested as he could be anyone
• the boy is stereotyped as he is doing manual labour, suggesting to the reader that this is
a traditional household
• the boy seems to be attacked by the saw as it ‘Leaped out at the boy’s hand’, even though
the narrator, almost in disbelief, suggests that the boy could have had some control by
saying ‘He must have given the hand’
• he is described as possibly accepting the accident: ‘He must have given the hand’,
‘Neither refused the meeting’
• the boy’s shock at the accident is shown by his immediate reaction: ‘a rueful laugh’
• the boy desperately pleads for help and support from his family, which creates a sense of
pathos: ‘holding up the hand,/Half in appeal, but half as if to keep/The life from spilling’
• his knowledge of what is to come and the plea to his sister are shocking: ‘“Don't let him
cut my hand off—/The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!”’
• the boy loses control of his life as the doctor ‘put him in the dark of ether’ and he ‘lay and
puffed his lips out with his breath’
• the unexpected and sudden death of the boy is greeted with disbelief from his family:
‘No one believed. They listened at his heart’

the use of language and structure:-

• violent verbs are used to show the danger of the saw: ‘snarled’, ‘rattled’
• emphasis on danger is created through repetition of the phrase ‘snarled and rattled’
• use of onomatopoeia and personification creates a sense of the saw being alive and in
control: ‘buzz saw’, ‘And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood’
• the feelings of death and its contrast with peace and sweetness are made memorable
through the use of alliteration in ‘dust and dropped’, ‘Sweet-scented stuff’
• the poet juxtaposes the sense of peace and tranquility in the description of the setting
with the noise of the saw, creating strong feelings
• the use of central pauses (caesura) in lines creates strong feelings by foreshadowing the
impending death and symbolising a life ending prematurely: ‘And then—the watcher at his
pulse took fright’
• the use of coordinated sentences suggests events moving at a pace: ‘And from there
those that lifted eyes…’, ‘And nothing happened’
• language linked to the passing of time creates connection to the lives of the readers:
‘sunset’, ‘day was all but done’, ‘Call it a day’, ‘the half hour’, ‘supper’
• short sentences create a sense of danger and tension: ‘He must have given the hand’, ‘But
the hand!’, ‘So’
• language is used to create strong feelings of loss and death: ‘The life from spilling’, ‘He
saw all spoiled’, ‘“Don't let him cut my hand off—’’’, ‘But the hand was gone already’, ‘the
dark of ether’, ‘He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath’, ‘Little—less—nothing!—and
that ended it’
• the repetition of ‘saw all’ shows the boy’s loss of innocence
• the contrast between the narrator’s voice and the direct speech of the boy shows the
importance of the boy’s feelings in the incident
• the use of negative commands explores the boy’s distress and determination not to lose
his hand: ‘“Don’t’’’
• the use of non-specific nouns and pronouns creates emphasis on the people in the poem
being anonymised: ‘those’, ‘they’, ‘the boy’, His sister’, ‘The doctor’, ‘the watcher’, ‘No one’
• the use of negatives shows a sense of finality: ‘No one’, ‘Little—less—nothing!’, ‘No more’
 Unknown Girl Analysis

how the writer feels about the experience with the girl:

• the writer begins the poem with the setting of the ‘evening bazaar/studded with neon’,
which helps to show the reader how well she remembers the experience
• the idea that the girl is ‘unknown’ creates a feeling of mystery about the experience
• even though people working in shops/services would usually be unknown to customers,
the writer attaches significance to the fact the girl is unknown by repeating this,
emphasising the sense of mystery about the cultural experience she is having
• the writer repeatedly emphasises the actions of the girl, showing interest in what she
contributes to the experience: ‘is hennaing my hand’
• verbs are used to detail the actions of the unknown girl and the active memory the
writer has of the experience: ‘squeezes’, ‘icing’, ‘steadies’
• the way the writer describes the girl shows a certain fascination about her youth and
softness: she is described as a ‘girl’ rather than a woman, ‘satin- peach knee’
• the writer shows that she is impressed by the creativity and beauty of the work in her
description of the process: ‘She squeezes a wet brown line/from a nozzle’, ‘icing my hand’,
‘a peacock spreads its lines/across my palm’, ‘I have new brown veins’, ‘soft as a snail
trail/the amber bird beneath’
• the writer also shows admiration for the skill and knowledge the girl demonstrates:
‘which she steadies with hers’, ‘very deftly’
• the writer presents the experience with the girl as sensual and exciting, through
references to what she is able to see, feel and hear: ‘the evening bazaar/studded with
neon’, ‘a little air catches/my shadow-stitched kameez’, ‘Colours leave the street’, ‘the
furious streets/are hushed’
• the way that the writer repeats what the girl is doing creates a sense of purpose and
peaceful feeling, leading to an almost dream-like state during the experience: ‘float up in
balloons’, ‘Now the furious streets/are hushed’
• the feelings she has about the experience are so strong that she feels nostalgic about it
afterwards: ‘longing for the unknown girl/in the neon bazaar’.

how the writer feels about the culture of India:

• the writer’s sensual description of the experience and traditional setting demonstrates
her excitement about the culture of India: ‘studded with neon’, ‘wet brown line’,
‘satin-peach knee’, ‘Colours leave the street’, ‘Now the furious streets/are hushed’
• the writer’s descriptions emphasise the Indian context of the experience: ‘evening
bazaar’, ‘for a few rupees’, ‘My shadow-stitched kameez’
• there is an underlying sense of how Indian culture approaches work and wealth in the
implication that the unknown girl is young (in the description of her being a ‘girl’ rather
than a woman), working late (in an ‘evening bazaar’) and has little money, as she is
described as working for ‘a few rupees’
• the description of the henna pattern demonstrates a connection to Indian culture since
the peacock has legendary and religious significance in Indian traditions: ‘a peacock
spreads its lines/across my palm’, ‘soft as a snail trail/the amber bird beneath’
• the writer feels that the henna pattern is symbolic of traditional India, which is creative
and should be protected: ‘very deftly/an unknown girl/is hennaing my hand’, ‘I am
clinging/to these firm peacock lines’
• this is contrasted with the way she describes her experience of a more ‘westernized’
India, which is implicitly negative: ‘Dummies in shop-fronts/tilt and stare/with their
Western perms’
• the writer feels a sense of loss after the experience is over, suggesting this sense of
cultural tradition is being lost: ‘It will fade in a week’
• the ending of the poem suggests that the writer yearns for the more traditional India: ‘I’ll
lean across a country/with my hands outstretched/longing for the unknown girl’
• the writer’s feelings about the mysterious ‘unknown girl’ are contrasted with the feelings
of identity linked to the place and the cultural experience of India: ‘I’ll lean across a
country/with my hands outstretched/longing for the unknown girl’.
the use of language and structure:

• the writer uses vocabulary to position the experience in the tradition of India, creating
texture and depth: ‘bazaar’, ‘hennaing’, ‘rupees’, ‘kameez’
• the way that the writer uses repetition of how the experience is described shows how
significant it is to the writer and emphasises the importance of tradition: ‘an unknown
girl/is hennaing my hand’
• the writer uses onomatopoeia in order to create a sensual, exciting experience:
‘squeezes’, ‘hushed’, ‘scrape’
• the contrast in sentence structures highlights different elements of the experience for
the reader; longer sentences are used which focus on the details of the experience: ‘In the
evening bazaar/for a few rupees/an unknown girl/is hennaing my hand’ while short
sentences are used to create emphasis and show contrast: ‘Colours leave the street/float
up in balloons’, ‘I have new brown veins’, ‘Now the furious streets/are hushed’
• the writer’s use of simple statements beginning with ‘she’ demonstrates the importance
of what the girl is doing: ‘She squeezes...’, ‘She is icing...’, ‘she steadies...’
• descriptions of colour and light create a sensual experience: ‘studded with neon’, ‘wet
brown line’, ‘satin-peach knee’, ‘Colours leave the street’, ‘new brown veins’
• metaphor is used to demonstrate the creativity of the unknown girl’s work: ‘She is icing
my hand’, ‘a peacock spreads its lines/across my palm’
• the writer’s use of alliteration or repetition of ‘c’ sounds emphasises ideas linked to
creativity and activity: ‘catches’, ‘kameez’, ‘Colours’, ‘curtain cloth/and sofa cloth/canopy
me’, ‘clinging’
• the contrast between westernised and traditional India is emphasised through the use of
personification: ‘Dummies in shop-fronts/tilt and stare’, ‘Now the furious streets/are
hushed’, ‘When India appears and reappears’
• the writer uses simile to place emphasis on the importance of Indian traditions: ‘like
people who cling/to the sides of a train’, ‘soft as a snail trail’
• the use of present tense through the poem until the end, when the poet thinks about the
future, creates a feeling of a present, immediate experience.
 Still I rise

how the narrator’s pride in herself is presented:

• the narrator shows that she is proud of how she overcomes the oppression of others by
opening the poem with ‘You may write me down in history/With your bitter, twisted lies’,
and then saying ‘still, like dust, I’ll rise’
• the narrator shows pride in qualities she has by referring to them as belonging to her:
‘my sassiness’, ‘my haughtiness’, ‘my sexiness’
• her questions to others repeat and foreground her views of her own strengths, showing
pride in showing them off: ‘Does my sassiness upset you?’, ‘Does my haughtiness offend
you?’, ‘Does my sexiness upset you?’
• the writer’s strength and pride are shown in the way she describes the others as
unhappy, while she is strong and positive: ‘bitter, twisted’, ‘upset’, ‘beset with gloom’, ‘take
it awful hard’
• the narrator’s description of how she walks, laughs and dances shows her pride in how
she does things, as she links these actions to symbols of wealth and power: ‘oil wells’, ‘gold
mines’, ‘diamonds’
• the narrator’s pride in her strength is seen in the way she aligns herself with the planets
and elements: ‘like moons and like suns’, ‘certainty of tides’, ‘like air’
• she is proud of being a woman, seen in her reference to ‘my sexiness’ and ‘diamonds/At
the meeting of my thighs?’
• the narrator’s description of how others expect her to be shows she is proud that she
does not behave in that way: ‘Bowed head and lowered eyes?/Shoulders falling down like
teardrops,/Weakened by my soulful cries?’
• the narrator shows pride in her determination to rise above the actions of others by
repeating: ‘I’ll rise’
• the way the narrator moves from the hopeful ‘I’ll rise’ to the definitive ‘I rise’ at the end of
the poem shows power and control that come from strength and pride.
how pride in the narrator’s background is presented:
• the narrator’s pride in her background is shown in the way she can affirm that her people
have been misrepresented: ‘write me down in history’
• the narrator shows that she challenges the views of others about her background: ‘your
bitter, twisted lies’, ‘You may shoot me with your words’
• the narrator’s reactions to the treatment by others show her sense of pride in herself and
her background: ‘trod me in the very dirt’, ‘You may cut me with your eyes,/You may kill
me with your hatefulness’
• the repeated descriptions of the behaviour of others to the narrator, from verbal abuse to
being metaphorically physically abusive, indirectly show how proud she is of her
background: ‘trod me in the very dirt’, ‘You may shoot me ... You may cut me ... You may kill
me’
• the narrator feels proud of her background and is unapologetic when presenting it as
difficult: ‘huts of history’s shame’, ‘a past that’s rooted in pain’
• the narrator is proud of her background as an African-American woman: ‘I’m a black
ocean, leaping and wide,/Welling and swelling I bear in the tide’
• the narrator sees her background as a source of pride rather than as a disadvantage, as
her ancestors gave her ‘gifts’: ‘Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave’
• towards the end of the poem she is proud to be the figurehead for more than just her
own feelings: ‘I am the dream and the hope of the slave.’

the use of language and structure:

• the writer uses rhyme to show the balance and control of someone who feels proud:
‘lies/rise’, ‘gloom/room’, ‘eyes/cries’
• the sense of pride in the poem is contrasted with the negative descriptions used to show
the behaviour and attitudes of others: ‘bitter, twisted’, ‘trod me in the very dirt’, ‘beset with
gloom’, ‘broken’, ‘teardrops’, ‘hatefulness’, ‘terror and fear’
• the writer uses nouns that describe strong personal qualities to demonstrate how proud
she is of them: ‘sassiness’, ‘haughtiness’, ‘sexiness’
• the possessive pronoun ‘my’ is used to show that these qualities belong to the narrator
and that she is proud to show them off
• the use of powerful metaphor links to the writer’s feeling of personal power: ‘oil
wells/Pumping in my living room’, ‘gold mines/Diggin’ in my own backyard’
• the writer uses rhetorical questions to show that she is proud enough to challenge
others in a taunting, mocking tone of voice: ‘Does my haughtiness offend you?’, ‘Does it
come as a surprise/That I dance like I’ve got diamonds/At the meeting of my thighs?’
• in contrast, the writer’s use of statements about herself shows her confidence and
security in her sense of pride: ‘But still, like dust, I’ll rise’, ‘I am the dream and the hope of
the slave’
• the use of colloquial Americanisms indicates the writer’s pride in her background:
‘sassiness’, ‘awful hard’
• powerful verbs are used to show that the narrator is proud to have overcome the actions
of others and their intended impact: ‘Shoulders falling down’, ‘Weakened’, ‘offend’
• the writer uses personification to show the sense of power the narrator’s pride gives her:
‘I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide’
• alliteration is used to create emphasis on pride by showing a positive future and moving
on from the past: ‘hopes springing high’, ‘huts of history’s shame’, ‘past that’s rooted in pain’
• repetition of ‘I rise’ creates a sense of pride in the way it emphasises the determination
of the narrator
• simile is used to emphasise how the narrator is proud of her vitality and life: ‘like I’ve got
oil wells/Pumping in my living room’, ‘like I’ve got gold mines/Diggin’ in my own backyard’,
‘like I’ve got diamonds/At the meeting of my thighs’
• the description of night and day shows the narrator is proud of the freedom she now
describes: ‘Leaving behind nights of terror and fear’, ‘daybreak that’s wondrously clear’
• the writer changes tense through the poem to show growth from how she plans to rise in
the future (‘I’ll rise’) to her actually doing it in the present (‘I rise’)
• the repetition of ‘I rise’ at the end of the poem (use of three) shows affirmation, pride and
confidence in the future.
 Bright lights of Sarajevo

the impact of war on Sarajevo and its people:

• there is a suggestion that there is little left in the way of transport following war, as
people have to carry large items in any (unusual) way they are able to: ‘they wheel home in
prams’
• food is described as limited, showing the impact that war has had on their lives: ‘queuing
for the precious meagre grams/of bread they’re rationed to each day’
• as an impact of war the people are described as ‘struggling’, and they have to carry
essentials like water ‘up sometimes eleven flights/of stairs’
• the poet seems surprised that people may feel positive or motivated to go out, given such
difficult circumstances: ‘then you’d think that the nights/of Sarajevo would be totally
devoid/of people walking streets’, ‘but tonight in Sarajevo that’s just not the case’
• the suggestion that the streets are unwelcoming, especially at night, shows how people
potentially do not want to go out ‘walking streets Serb shells destroyed’ as they have such
a daily struggle and there is no electricity
• the poet progresses from describing the everyday actions of the people to later
describing how war affected these when ‘blood-dunked crusts of shredded bread/lay on
the pavement with the broken dead’, the innocent, everyday mention of ‘bread’
emphasising the horror of this massacre
• the Sarajevans live with the damage done by war: ‘in holes made by the mortar’,
‘death-deep, death-dark wells’, ‘AID flour sacks refilled with sand’

the ways young people behave:

• the poet describes how the ‘young’ people of Sarajevo are relaxed and free at night as
they ‘go walking at a stroller’s pace’ with ‘stroller’s stride’
• the poet also explores how the dark streets at night make all language barriers obsolete:
‘In unlit streets you can’t distinguish who/calls bread hjleb or hleb or calls it kruh’
• there is a sense that the young people of the city are peaceful and uninterested in
violence or war: ‘no torches guide them but they don’t collide’
• the young people of Sarajevo are shown to be typical of any young people who engage in
‘flirtatious ploys’
• the setting, which is presented as dark and dangerous to others, is presented as quite
sensuous and innocent to the young people: they meet ‘In unlit streets’ in ‘the evening air’
• the poet suggests that the couple are symbolic of any hopeful young couple anywhere in
the world by referring to them as ‘a girl’s dark shape...fancied by a boy’s’ and ‘The dark boy
shape leads dark girl shape away’
• there is a sense of experienced innocence in the description of the ‘tone of voice and
match-flare test’: innocence in the ‘tender’ voices and experience in the ‘match or lighter
to a cigarette’; this could suggest what they have experienced as a result of war
• the poet’s description of the couple shows that relationships can flourish in a negative
environment: he describes how they have ‘certainly progressed’ and how ‘he’s about, I
think, to take her hand’
• the description of how the boy is about to ‘lead her away from where they stand’ suggests
tenderness as he moves her away from the scene of the massacre
• the poet ironically suggests a romantic setting for the relationship: ‘the Sarajevo
star-filled evening sky’, ‘a candlelit café’
• the setting is shown to be damaged and weather-beaten, with the ‘holes made by the
mortar’ and the ‘rain that’s poured down half the day’, but the relationship is almost
presented as a symbol of hope as when the boy and girl meet ‘now even the smallest
clouds have cleared away’

the use of language and structure:

• the preposition ‘After’ at the start of the poem suggests the people of Sarajevo having to
do something as a consequence of something else (i.e. war)
• in the first stanza the verbs in progressive tense suggest a sense of continued and
ongoing difficulty for the Sarajevan people: ‘queuing’, ‘dodging’, ‘struggling’
• there are also verbs in past tense throughout the poem which show the negative impact
of the events on the people: ‘rationed’, ‘destroyed’, ‘massacred’, ‘splintered’
• the poet describes the lifestyle of the people as limited or difficult, suggesting an
imposed lifestyle that the people have not chosen: ‘queuing’, ‘empty’, ‘meagre’, ‘rationed’,
‘devoid’, ‘curfew’, ‘AID flour sacks’
• enjambement is used in the first stanza to create a continuum in the poem, suggesting
the daily struggle is regular and continuing for the people of Sarajevo
• adverbs suggest certainty of the experience of the people: ‘totally’, ‘certainly’, ‘ideally’;
although the use of ‘ideally’ is ironic as it links to the danger implied in the ‘bomber’s eye’
• the repetition of ‘Serb’ emphasises to the reader that the experiences of the people in
Sarajevo are impacted by the actions of the Bosnian Serbs
• imagery of darkness suggests that war creates dark times: ‘black shapes impossible to
mark’, ‘such dark’, ‘unlit streets’, ‘no torches guide them’, ‘dark shape’, ‘dark boy shape leads
dark girl shape away’
• the poet uses gentle, romantic language to suggest an innocence in the relationship
between the young people: ‘flirtatious’, ‘fancied’, ‘tender’, ‘take her hand’, ‘holds her hand’,
‘star-filled evening sky’; this is in contrast to the effects of war on the people
• imagery of death and destruction creates a sense of horror in what is happening and has
happened to the people: ‘dodging snipers’, ‘Serb shells destroyed’, ‘two shell scars’, ‘Serb
mortars massacred the breadshop queue’, ‘blood-dunked crusts of shredded bread’, ‘broken
dead’, ‘bomber’s eye’, ‘Serb mortar shells’
• the poet also distances the people of Sarajevo from the causes of it, almost personifying
the weapons of war in order to place emphasis on the people he is seeing, not the people
who bomb or shoot them: ‘Serb shells destroyed’, ‘Serb mortars massacred’, ‘holes made by
the mortar/that caused the massacre’, ‘by Serb mortar shells’. The ultimate causes of
damage are the people who use the weapons, but the poet makes the focus on the people
of the city
• the use of sibilance throughout the poem creates a sense of unity and emphasis on the
experiences of the people, for example in the first stanza, ‘stroller’s stride’, ‘shows by its
signals’, ‘shell scars’, ‘Sarajevo star-filled evening sky’, ‘splintered’, ‘sprinkled’, ‘splashed’
• the final line of the poem demonstrates the need for help from others and how the threat
of violence is still there, as they have ‘AID flour sacks refilled with sand’.
 Significant Cigarettes
Lev’s thoughts and feelings about home:
• the immediate description of how Lev is sitting suggests to the reader that Lev feels
uncomfortable and sad about leaving home: ‘chose a seat near the back and he sat huddled
against the window, staring out at the land he was leaving’
• Lev’s cap is ‘pulled low over his eyes’ as if he does not want to see the home he is leaving
• the writer uses the cigarettes as a symbol of Lev’s solitary journey and connection with
home as the first cigarette he puts between his lips ‘was a companion – something to hold
on to, something that had promise in it’
• Lev’s unwillingness to respond to Lydia’s reprimand about smoking shows he wishes to
remain isolated and alone at the start of the journey: ‘all he could be bothered to do now
was to nod, just to show the woman that he'd heard what she'd said’
• the writer’s descriptions of the journey and the coach make the reader feel that Lev is
not happy to be leaving home: ‘they would have to sit for fifty hours or more’, ‘the
passengers would be able to clamber off, walk a few paces…would be herded back onto the
coach’, ‘There would be times when the journey would seem to have no end’, ‘a fierce little
light above her under the baggage rack’
• Lev’s memories of his wife are triggered by Lydia’s ‘hard-boiled egg’: ‘The smell of the egg
reminded Lev of the sulphur springs at Jor, where he'd taken Marina, just in case nature
could cure what man had given up for lost’, and only then does he allow himself to start a
conversation with his fellow passenger
• Lev’s feelings of sadness, loss and guilt are explored when he starts to tell Lydia about his
home life: ‘had worked in the Baryn sawmill until it closed two years ago, and since then
he'd found no work at all’, ‘Since the death of Marina…what he always saw in it was his own
guilt at still being alive’
• Lev’s thoughts about leaving home are described at the end of the extract as ‘hard and
bitter’.
Lev’s thoughts and feelings about the future:
• the opening description reflects his mixed feelings about leaving home as it focuses on
how the sunflowers are ‘scorched by the dry wind’ and how the garlic grows ‘wild…at the
edge of the road’
• at the start of the extract Lev is more focused on the journey and the past he is leaving
behind. This focus is reflected in his negativity about the arrival, ‘beginning a new life’, the
lack of communication and lack of real connection with the woman on the journey
• Lev’s uncertainty about the future is seen in his view that England is ‘a world in which he
would break his back working – if only that work could be found’
• Lev’s uncertainty about the future is also reflected in Lydia’s uncertainty as she is
traveling not with the promise of a job but with the opportunity of ‘‘‘some interviews in
London for jobs as a translator’’’
• the writer shows that Lev’s English language knowledge is limited to what he will need as
an immigrant in the country, suggesting a lack of permanence: ‘‘‘I am legal’’’, ‘‘‘I am lost. I
wish for an interpreter. Bee-and-bee’’’
• Lev’s thoughts of England are limited to what he has heard and what he imagines, and
there is a lack of positive imagery in these thoughts: ‘in England vodka was too expensive
to drink’, ‘with rain falling outside the window’
• although it appears Lev’s thoughts of England lack positivity, his assertions that ‘‘‘I will
do any work at all’’’ and ‘‘‘England is my hope’’’ show a determination to make this a future
for the benefit of his daughter
• the end of the extract leaves the reader with Lev’s determination and optimism for the
future, which triumph over his feelings of the past: ‘I'm going to their country now and I'm
going to make them share it with me: their infernal luck. I've left Auror and that leaving of
my home was hard and bitter, but my time is coming’.

the use of language and structure:

• the verbs used to describe Lev’s actions at the start of the extract show his fear,
discomfort and sadness about leaving: ‘huddled’, ‘staring’, ‘clutched’
• the description of Lev’s homeland at the start of the extract has some positivity in its use
of colourful images, reflecting his feelings about it: ‘fields of sunflowers’, ‘growing green’;
this contrasts with his views of England in the images he sees on the bank note he
examines: ‘her face grey’, ‘dark drooping’
• the contrasting imagery of nature and industry is reflective of Lev’s feelings about his
new life. The views of nature are being destroyed by industry, reflecting how it has
destroyed his career at home and forced him to move: ‘see wild flowers on a verge, soiled
paper among bushes, sun or rain on the road’, ‘the onrush of nature's light, look for a
clover leaf, smoke and stare at the cars rushing by’, ‘the stink of another industrial zone, or
the sudden gleam of a lake, for rain and sunset and the approach of darkness on silent
marshes’
• the writer presents Lev as an incongruous mixture of young and old in his looks and
clothing as he wears clothes that make him sound youthful, with the help of polysyndetic
listing (‘a leather jacket and jeans and a leather cap’) and is described as having a
‘handsome face’, although he is also ‘grey-toned from his smoking’ with an ‘old red cotton
handkerchief and a dented pack of Russian cigarettes’, and ‘thick grey hair’
• short sentences are used to create emphasis on Lev’s situation and feelings: ‘He would
soon be forty-three’ emphasises he is a mature man starting a long journey to a new life;
‘He looked away’, ‘Lev drank again’, ‘‘‘I will do any work at all’’’, ‘‘‘England is my hope’’’
• the writer’s use of language makes the reader aware of Lev’s physical discomfort on the
journey, reflecting his discomfort at leaving home: ‘had tried to prepare himself mentally
for the long agony of it’, ‘Sleeping upright was not something Lev was practised in’, ‘His
longing for a cigarette had grown steadily…and now it was acute’
• the simile ‘like a married couple’ foreshadows the memories of Lev’s wife and their past
life
• the writer uses images of weather to reflect Lev’s feelings about England: ‘rainy morning’,
‘with rain falling outside the window’
• the writer’s use of pronouns emphasises Lev’s feelings that he belongs in his home, which
contrasts with his feelings of the English people as alien to him: ‘his own country’, ‘‘‘our
country’’’, ‘‘‘their history’”, ‘‘‘their past deeds’’’, ‘their country’, ‘my home’
 Story of an Hour

Mrs. Mallard’s thoughts and feelings about her husband and marriage:
• Mrs. Mallard’s sister and Richards view her as likely to respond as any other wife would
to the ‘news of her husband’s death’, and because she has a heart condition they break it to
her ‘as gently as possible’
• however, Mrs. Mallard’s reactions on hearing the news are not like other wives: ‘She did
not hear the story as many women have heard the same’
• the writer uses the description of a usual reaction to the death of a loved one in order to
show the contrast with hers: ‘with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance’
• her reaction to the news shows that she does what she feels is expected of her as a
‘loving wife’ as she weeps in her sister’s arms
• the writer describes her response to the news as over-dramatic and exaggerated: ‘She
wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment’
• there is a sense that Mrs. Mallard feels exhausted and empty after the news, as any wife
would: ‘pressed down by a physical exhaustion’
• she has intelligent recognition that the feelings she has are not ones she should have as a
wife. She feels she should be grieving but is fearful that she is going to feel ‘“free, free,
free!”’
• Mrs. Mallard is aware that it may be a ‘monstrous joy that held her’, as she is joyful for the
‘death’ of her husband, but she dismisses this as ‘trivial’
• the writer shows that Mrs. Mallard knows that she will grieve again for her husband
when she sees his body: ‘she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands
folded in death’
• Mr. Mallard is described in positive terms and as always being a loving husband: ‘kind,
tender hands’, ‘the face that had never looked save with love upon her’
• Mrs. Mallard is shown as conflicted about her feelings for her husband: ‘And yet she had
loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter!’
• Mrs. Mallard is shown to have a feeling of dread and fear of a lack of meaning or direction
in life: ‘It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long’.
Mrs. Mallard’s thoughts and feelings about her future:
• Mrs. Mallard’s wish to be solitary and alone after the news appears to be a reaction to
death, but it is her need to reflect on the future: ‘she went away to her room alone’ and
‘would have no one follow her’
• Mrs. Mallard is alone with her thoughts and has a heightened awareness of her senses,
making her focus on the present as she starts to think of the future: ‘She could see’, ‘The
delicious breath of rain’, ‘singing reached her faintly’
• once her grief is spent she moves quickly into a pore and there through the clouds’
st-crying sob like a child: ‘as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its
dreams’
• her physical appearance contrasts with her actions as she is ‘young, with a fair, calm face’
but has a gaze that ‘rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought’, showing youthful
capability
• Mrs. Mallard feels the future coming but because of her past ‘repression’ she is unsure
and fearful of it: ‘There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully’
• once she feels the freedom in the future the repetition of the words ‘“free, free, free!”’
helps her to accept her feelings: ‘The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed
it went from her eyes’
• her ‘clear and exalted perception’ shows a sharp sense of positivity about her
independence: ‘she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come
that would belong to her absolutely’. she thinks about her new-found freedom: ‘she would
live for herself’, ‘‘‘Free! Body and soul free!’’ she kept whispering’
• she is hopeful about a long and happy future: ‘She breathed a quick prayer that life might
be long’
• Mrs. Mallard’s response to her new freedom is seen in her reaction to her sister’s
knocking: ‘There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly
like a goddess of Victory’
• she exerts control in the relationship by the way she ‘clasped at her sister’s waist’
• it is ironic that she does not die ‘of the joy that kills’ but from the loss of the idea of a new
life without her husband: the shock and disappointment kill her.
the use of language and structure:
• the writer uses language to suggest that the event of the death of a spouse needs to be
broken gently, with some euphemism: ‘as gently as possible’, ‘in broken sentences’, ‘veiled
hints’, ‘assure himself of its truth’
• language is used to suggest Mrs. Mallard’s fragility given her ‘heart trouble’: ‘afflicted’,
‘great care’, ‘as gently as possible’
• the description of her reactions when hearing the news shows a violent response:
‘sudden, wild abandonment’
• the use of metaphor shows Mrs. Mallard’s extreme reaction to ‘her husband’s death’:
‘storm of grief’, ‘pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed
to reach into her soul’
• positive language is used to show (new) life and this reflects the character’s thoughts on
her future: ‘aquiver with the new spring life’, ‘delicious breath of rain’, ‘sparrows twittering
in the eaves’
• the writer creates a sense of peace and tranquillity in the description of the setting,
showing her calm attitude to facing the future
• the use of prepositional phrases creates a sense of relationships between people and
feelings: ‘moment of illumination’, ‘possession of self-assertion’, ‘strongest impulse of her
being!’
• range of sentence types shows extreme emotion and a range of feelings: ‘What was it?’,
‘What did it matter!’, “‘Body and soul free!’”
• the use of adverbs demonstrates the range of feelings that she is experiencing: ‘fearfully’,
‘tumultuously’, ‘absolutely’, ‘unwittingly’
• the use of coordinated sentences creates a feeling of events moving at a fast pace: ‘Fixed
and gray and dead’, ‘Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days’
• short sentences create a sense of building tension which reflects her married life and her
sense of urgency to start a new one: ‘Often she had not’, ‘What did it matter!’, ‘Go away’
• the writer repeats the phrase ‘life might be long’ to show the contrast in her feelings
towards life from before and after the ‘death’
 Night
how the narrator of the story is presented:
• the narrator begins the story with ‘When I was young’, showing that it will be looking
back on her childhood, creating interest in this memoir-style reflection
• the narrator’s illness is described as painful but exciting: it is a ‘pain’ that ‘struck’ ‘at
about eleven o'clock at night’, which is late for a child, and leads to ‘A trip of no more than a
mile and a half but an adventure all the same’
• the narrator’s reactions to her operation present her as a ‘typical’ child that the reader
can relate to. She shows boredom in the aftermath of the operation (‘So I lay, minus my
appendix, for some days looking out a hospital window’) and enjoyment in being excused
from some school activities (‘enjoyed being excused from physical training for longer than
necessary’)
• the narrator realises that as a child she did not have any idea of the financial impact her
illness had on her family, which builds the reader’s awareness of family circumstances: ‘I
don’t suppose it ever crossed my head to wonder how my father was going to pay for this
distinction’
• the narrator’s description of how she thinks her father paid for the operation
demonstrates contrast with the child’s view because as an adult she feels the need to take
into account such responsibilities: ‘I think he sold a woodlot that he had kept when he
disposed of his father’s farm’
• the narrator shows that following the operation she is treated differently, creating some
apprehension in the reader: ‘It seems that the mysterious turkey egg must have given me
some invalid status, so that I could spend part of the time wandering about like a visitor’
• in contrast, by the summer, the narrator’s actions and behaviour lead her family to have
no concerns about her, which is reassuring: ‘nobody knew there was a thing the matter
with me’
• although the actions the narrator describes suggest ‘typical’ sibling rivalry and the sense
of her being a ‘superior’ older sister (‘tormenting her, teasing her’, ‘I would take on the role
of sophisticated counsellor or hair-raising storyteller’), the fact that she describes her
relationship with her younger sister as ‘always unsettled’ builds tension
• the description of how her physical illness causes the narrator to feel some emotional
ill-health creates unease in the reader: ‘this uselessness and strangeness I felt’, ‘I had
begun to have trouble getting to sleep’
• the narrator’s concern about her emotional health creates foreboding in the reader: ‘I
was not myself’, ‘Something was taking hold of me and it was my business, my hope, to
fight it off’, ‘The more I chased the thought away, the more it came back’
• the description of her feelings is threatening and worrying, showing that her physical
illness has caused, or has led to, mental health issues: ‘The thought that I could strangle
my little sister’, ‘I might do it for no reason I or anybody could understand, except that I
could not help it’, ‘it eased me to look towards town, maybe just to inhale the sanity of it’
• the way the narrator tries to take control of her symptoms and her insomnia
independently shows her determination and intelligence: ‘The thing to do was to get up, to
get myself out of that room and out of the house’
• the isolation the narrator feels because of her insomnia and subsequent mental health
issues is shown in the way her family are unaffected: ‘My brother and sister had gone off
to their classes in the public school’, ‘When my sister got home from school we would
swing in the hammock’, ‘I did not speak of my night difficulties’
• the adult narrator’s reflection that the insomnia might have been caused by something
simple reassures her in adulthood and, in turn, the reader: ‘It was in that hammock that I
spent much of the days, which possibly accounted for my not getting to sleep at night’, ‘the
simple information that I’d be better off getting more action during the day’
• the narrator feels that she has ‘special status’ due to her operation, as her family give her
freedom to lie awake: ‘Nobody would have called out to me earlier, telling me to put out my
light and get to sleep’, ‘I was left to make up my own mind about such a thing’
• the narrator’s relationship with her father is complex, as he is shown to be violent in his
punishment of his children: ‘with his use on me of the razor strap or his belt’. The narrator
also acknowledges that he helps to reassure her, and the reader, that all is well and after
his intervention she is able to sleep: ‘on that breaking morning he gave me just what I
needed to hear and what I was even to forget about soon enough’, ‘From then on I could
sleep’.

how the events are described:

• the opening of the story builds a feeling that ‘physical events’ happen to her family a
number of times in the narrator’s childhood and at a specific time of year: ‘When I was
young, there seemed to be never ... a burst appendix, or any other drastic physical event
that did not occur simultaneously with a snowstorm’
• the description of how the narrator’s family are helpless and cannot do anything due to
the conditions creates tension and suspense, interesting the reader: ‘a blizzard had to be
blowing, and since we were not stabling any horses at the moment, the neighbors’ team
had to be brought into action’
• the removal of the appendix is a common operation, which reassures the reader that
there is nothing serious happening: ‘to nobody’s surprise he prepared to take out my
appendix’
• the description of how the narrator is given special treatment when she returns to
school shows that others have concern for her and perhaps indulge her: ‘enjoyed being
excused from physical training for longer than necessary’
• the narrator is told by her mother about how a growth was removed in addition to her
appendix, showing that her mother is concerned and feels that she should know what
happened to her: ‘A growth, my mother said, the size of a turkey’s egg’
• the way that the narrator’s mother attempts to reassure her that she is well suggests to
the reader that she needs to reassure herself, which builds unease: ‘But don’t worry, she
said, it’s all over now’
• the adult narrator is aware that her mother was concerned about cancer but does not
wish to say it, suggesting secrecy: ‘never mentioned it’
• it is implied that the narrator’s family had already experienced serious illness, ‘that there
must have been a cloud around that word...’ which is why her family did not speak of
cancer, alongside the social taboo of mentioning the disease
• the way that the narrator describes her mother suggests that illness impacted on her
family more than once: ‘my mother must have been well enough, as yet, to handle most of
that work’, ‘there was a name for my mother’s shakiness’
• the reader is reassured by the reaction of the narrator’s father to her insomnia, as he
responds that it is natural and not unusual: ‘He said that was often the case on summer
nights’
• the reader may be reassured or surprised by the narrator’s father’s reaction to her
honesty about her thoughts, since he feels that this is normal and nothing to be concerned
about: ‘Then he said not to worry’, ‘He seemed more to be taking it for granted that such a
thing could not happen’, ‘It could not happen, in the way that a meteor could not hit our
house’, ‘He did not blame me’
• the operation is given as the ‘solution’ to the puzzle that the narrator has been facing: ‘An
effect of the ether, he said. Ether they gave you in the hospital’, creating a sense of
satisfaction in a logical conclusion
• differing approaches to mental health issues over time are seen in the contrast between
what the narrator’s father did and what he ‘might have’ done: ‘he might have made an
appointment for me to see a psychiatrist’, ‘The fact is, what he did worked as well’.

the use of language and structure:

• the timeline in the story creates suspense by suggesting that the impact of the narrator’s
illness carries on for some time. It seems to strike her in winter, as she describes the
‘blizzard’, then how the impact is still seen in summer: ‘In the heat of early June I got out of
school’
• there is contrast between how the narrator considers the events and relationships as a
child and as an adult; the story is structured both as narration of events unfolding and a
present reflection on past events
• the writer’s extreme description of the pain and conditions that opens the story creates
a sense of foreboding: the description of the pain suggests her illness is sudden and like
being hit, ‘When the pain in my side struck’, and the conditions are extreme: ‘The roads
would be closed, there was no question of digging out a car’
• the writer creates interest by using punctuation such as parenthesis and dashes to
create the tone of autobiographical memories alongside narrative description
• the repetition of the ideas of freedom and independence emphasises the impact of the
narrator’s illness: ‘enjoyed being excused from physical training’, ‘I got out of school’, ‘I was
free of school and left on my own’
• this is contrasted with the way that the narrator’s family react to her as having ‘invalid
status’ and ‘special status’, supported by the simile ‘wandering about like a visitor’
• the writer uses ‘but’ in the narrator’s discussion with her mother on the removal of the
growth, creating a sinister tone: ‘but it was not the only thing removed’, ‘but the main
thing that concerned him was a growth’, ‘But don’t worry’
• single-line paragraphs are used to create suspense, for example ‘But don’t worry, she
said, it’s all over now’ is set out so that it creates a sense that it is not ‘all over’. This feeling
is supported by single-line paragraphs such as ‘I was not myself’, ‘Think again’, ‘The
thought was there and hanging in my mind’
• the writer uses negatives to demonstrate attitudes to the narrator’s illness and build
empathy with her: ‘never entered my head and she never mentioned it’, ‘our failure to
speak of it’, ‘I did not ask and wasn’t told’, ‘nobody knew there was a thing the matter with
me’
• the use of language shows that she considers the operation and its effects more seriously
retrospectively: ‘The thought of cancer never entered my head’, ‘If this were happening
today, he might have made an appointment for me to see a psychiatrist’
• the description of how the writer says that she has never questioned what else was
removed shows some reservation about knowing too much about the events: ‘can only
suppose it was benign or was most skillfully got rid of, for here I am today’, ‘when called
upon to list my surgeries, I automatically say or write only “Appendix”’
• the language used to describe the narrator’s relationship with her sister builds a sense of
them being both close and distant from each other, which is significant when considered
with the narrator’s thoughts later on: ‘the bedroom occupied by my sister and myself’, ‘The
relationship between us was always unsettled’, ‘tormenting her, teasing her’, ‘I would take
on the role of sophisticated counsellor or hair-raising storyteller’
• there is a sense of isolation in and fear of mental health, which is emphasised by the fact
that she does not tell anyone (‘I did not speak of my night difficulties’) and in the way the
writer describes the surroundings: ‘it became a stranger place’, ‘there were no streetlights’,
‘they were all intensely black’
• the writer uses short sentences to create tension about insomnia and subsequent mental
health issues: ‘At first, perhaps it was. The freedom. The strangeness’, ‘I was not myself’,
‘Think again’, ‘How strange’, ‘The worst’
• the writer uses the idiom ‘more and more’ to show her increasing concern about her
insomnia: ‘I became more and more disturbed by it’
• the use of personification to show her attempts to try to get to sleep and thoughts about
her sister show a lack of control: ‘The activity seemed to mock me’, ‘Something was taking
hold of me and it was my business, my hope, to fight it off’, ‘The demons got hold of me
again’
• metaphorical descriptions of how her thoughts talk to her add to this sense of lack of
control: ‘It was informing me that motives were not necessary’, ‘The more I chased the
thought away, the more it came back’, ‘It might be saying why not’
• the writer creates a reliable narrator but also a sense of looking back on a memory in the
contrast between direct and indirect speech in the narrator’s discussion with her father
about her problems: ‘He said good morning’, ‘Why was that? I did not know’, ‘‘‘Having
trouble sleeping?’’’, ‘‘‘Stupid question’’’, ‘‘‘Well’’’
• negatives are used positively towards the end of the story to show that the narrator’s
father is unconcerned about her mental health: ‘no real worry about it, no more than a
dream’, ‘such a thing could not happen’, ‘No more sense than a dream’, ‘It could not happen’,
‘He did not blame me’; this is emphasized with repetition.