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level: Level 1

Questions and Answers List

level questions: Level 1

QuestionAnswer
Collection Introduction (2)Standing Female Nude, 1985 Courage of journalists entering and photographing war zones Inspired by war photographer Don MucCullin
SubjectChoice between helping people or recording events to expose their horrors (dilemma)
Form (2)Four sestets (rigidity amongst the chaos of war) - "did not tremble then" Combination of closed and open form
Theme (4)Exposing truth of war to those who live in peace Lack of compassion towards those who are suffering Fabrication and superficiality of the news to create shock factor Courage of journalists who enter war zones and military conflicts - Traumatic effect of war
Motifs (3)"he earns his living and they do not care" "editor will pick out five or six" "he has a job to do", "did not tremble then"
Diction; Language Lexical fields (3) Biblical allusion Allegory (2) Kenning (2) ZuegmaConstrained and understated (portrays things at face-value) - Photography; 'images', 'editor' - War; 'aeroplane', 'blood', 'explode' - Religion; 'church', 'priest', 'mass' 'All flesh is grass' - civilians are sacrificial victims of war; links to Christ being our sacrificial lamb (1) 'something is happening'; photographer not in complete control - metaphorically he cannot stop the war or help the dead - literally he must wait for the image to develop (2) 'half-formed ghost' - metaphorically it has a haunting effect - literally it is a dead person (anonymous - could be anyone) (1) 'hundred agonies in black and white' - the soldiers become figures or statistics (2) 'where he earns his living' (England) 'The reader's eyeballs prick/with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers (short-lived empathy due to a chaotic and saturated lifestyle)
Imagery and Symbolism; Pictorial Visual, chromatic Auditory Associational"running children in a nightmare heat" (allusion to a picture taken of a girl running down the street after having been burnt by napalm) "red light" - associated with sacrifice and blood "cries of this man's wife" - he must ignore, or rather look beyond, the pain of war in order to carry out his job "blood stained into foreign dust" - religious undertones; 'ashes to ashes'
Rhythm Consonance PunctuationEnjambment - creates a smooth and fluent pace; contrast to the war atmosphere Sibilant - 'solutions slop in trays' (onomatopoeic); ironic, there is no solution to war Use of full stops in 'Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh' - the words imprint in the reader's mind
RhymeRhyming couplets create order and melody which contrasts to the confusion of war - 'mass', 'grass' - 'tears', 'beers - 'rows', 'glows'
Tone MoodBias in 'someone must do' Duffy respects and sympathises with the photographer The atmosphere is bitter and uncomfortable - 'they do not care' - There isn't a direct setting of war. Rather, he is in his 'darkroom' which is both a literal and metaphorical reference to the darkness around him
Conclusion (2)Duffy explores and respects the complexity of morality in these situations The photographer is unnamed, he is simply 'he', making the poem universally applicable